The Quarterly Journal of Speech 1916-01: Vol 2 Iss 1

THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL
OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

JANUARY 1916

SPEECH TRAINING IN PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOLS

CHARLES A. DAWSON
Niagara Falls High School

“IDEHIND every great artist is a humble workman who knows

his trade and likes it.” What I have to say about the subject
of speech training in high schools amounts to a development of
certain suggestions lying in this sentence from John LaFarge.
There is a very real distinction between artist and artisan, even
though it be difficult always to define it with clearness. Art is a
finer thing than artisanship. But no fine art ever rests upon poor
workmanship. Workmanship may remain only workmanship,
a living soul lacking the touch of the quickening spirit, but this
same spirit is not in our experience found apart from the soul of
workmanship—craftsmanship, if you will. I rather like the dis-
tinction between the speech craft and the speech art. The term
“craft” has a certain solid, practical core to it, with yet something
of the ideal in its wrappings that suggests a possible art.

Reading and speaking are arts, fine arts, but they are also
crafts, practical pursuits. It is precisely this practical matter that,
in our just enthusiasm for the art, we are most prone to forget.
And I think that, instead of trying to make our term “art” cover
everything, we may do well frankly to recognize this distinction and

2 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

practically to apply it as a principle of instruction. Now my
conception of the business of a teacher of reading and speaking in a
public high school is, first and broadly, the development of good
craftsmanship—this for the many; and secondly, for the few who
can, the cultivation of good art.

The public high school, by its very nature and place in our
system, must and does receive groups of pupils as varied in char-
acter and variable in capacity as the population of the communities
from which they come. Certainly, as a means of mental develop-
ment and as an instrument of democracy, training in speech is an
essential in the course of study for these pupils; a grasp of the
principles and methods of effective communication with their
fellows is a desirable end. Not only, therefore, must the teaching
of oral English maintain what place it already has, but its bounds
must be enlarged.

In general, I think, the ends to be held in view in such training
may be stated under three heads:

1. Preparation for good conversation and informal discussion,
for rapid formulation and brief, telling expression of ideas related
to a matter of immediate interest. Such training is both practical
and practicable. It involves not only the development of a diction
at once facile and precise, but also the gaining of the power to
discover readily and employ aptly material germane to a discussion
in hand.

2. Preparation for connected presentation of matter to an
audience; that is, for the effective “‘speech,” technically so called.
3. Preparation for oral reading, without or with the book.

In some degree these powers should be in the possession of
every boy and girl as they leave the high school. But upon this
statement of ends there must be laid another statement of simple
fact—a schedule of the abilities of the actual pupils. First, there
are those pupils, by far the largest number in any school, who may
become fair or good or even excellent craftsmen. Secondly,
there are the few who may become; in some degree, artists—that
is, may grow to the doing of artistic speech work. These are
they that, having come up through great tribulation, are a per-
petual joy.

SPEECH TRAINING IN PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOLS 3

Now, putting together our ideas of the needs of these two groups
of pupils, we may secure a basis for a practicable program. Recall-
ing the sentence with which we started, we may determine the
principle that unifies the program. Fundamentally, the needs
of the two groups of pupils are the same. The desideratum then in
the whole matter of oral English is a comprehensive course in the
craftsmanship of speaking and reading that shall satisfy the needs,
everyday needs, of the many, and provide a firm foundation upon
which the few may build. The needful technical contents of such
a course are soon told. They are the basic principles of handling the
tools and machinery of speech: (1) breathing; (2) formation and
placing of sounds; (3) control of pitch and inflection. These are
matters that apply to every voice; their mastery in some measure
is essential to any workmanlike speech whatever. For the four
years of the high school they about cover the appropriate work.
Discussions of special qualities of voice either are useless, making

no impression upon the pupils, or are positively harmful, generating -

all manner of artificiality. However, three other sound reasons
may be given for this immediate restriction:

1. These are the critical points in such training of our polyglot
population as shall tend to preserve our English in some degree of
purity.

2. These fundamentals offer also to those teachers of English
who must be content with scant training in elocution the most
practical mode of approach to the problem of speech, with a mini-
mum of opportunity to do damage.

3. The emphasis upon these principles of craftsmanship supplies
a practical point of contact with the public behind the pupils, which
still feels in good reading and speech much of the occult.

Now, a further group of considerations arises with respect
to the material to be used for practice in such a course. First,
the material must be of immediate value in its clear illustration of
some principles of speech and in its adaptation to the powers of
the pupil. In the second place, as much as possible of this material
must have permanent worth as a mental possession, frequently
such worth as may be reinforced by its usefulness or application in
other studies.

ea ay

NOS pnts 5 ot ae

A
a
a

x

4 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

Under all these conditions, I am inclined to give first place to
the pupil’s own work, the expression of his own ideas, developed as
part of his own experience. These may take the form of narra-
tive, anecdote, explanation, or argument. Of course we must not
forget that we are here dealing with class problems, a matter quite
different from the treatment of the private pupil. Much depends
upon the plan of class management. The method and atmosphere
of the classroom must be such that the pupil’s experience does not
suffer a lapse when he enters the door. If the plan be a mixed pro-
gram of anecdote and incident from the life, then the pupil must be
able to get that life through the door with him. Or the teacher
may have in mind an exercise in exposition, the clear and interesting
explanation of some process, work, or game; and the business
must retain in the classroom much of the importance it has assumed
outside. The teacher may have doubts about the worth of the
interests of the boys and girls, and in truth these have limits severe
and for the most part soon reached. But granting some worth,
sufficient to justify an invitation to exploit them in the speech class,
then the teacher must try to realize in that class a situation that
shall, as nearly as possible, equal in interest for the class the matters
they have to present. The specific items of experience will be as
varied as the pupils, running all the way from potatoes and “movies”
to aeroplanes and the Panama Canal, and they will include much
of the school work of the boys and girls. This is oral composition
proper. Each piece of work, at least before the fourth year, may be
of from three to five minutes in length, and it should be subject
to criticism for effectiveness by the class. What the pupil has to
say must be said to somebody, and the “stuff” he presents must
be such as can be counted worth while for at least some of his
audience. This means adequate preparation, and it means the
securing of the speaker’s own peculiar angle of view. Under such
organization the teacher comes to know the special tastes and
interests of each pupil, his individuality, in other words, and as
a consequence the class takes on, both for itself and for the teacher,
rather more of the manner of a living group.

This touches another matter. For the teacher of speech it is
vitally necessary that a certain unity be developed in the class,

SPEECH TRAINING IN PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOLS 5

an esprit de corps. To this end the use of the material just discussed
will often serve well, but even better is the use of the informal dis-
cussion or conversation. The class is led to talk about some sub-
ject upon which there is opportunity for fair and simple division
of opinion, some question upon which it is useful or necessary that
individuals or the community should reach some working decision.
It may be some policy within the school—length of sessions, the
lunch-hour, athletics—or a matter of wider interest. I am a
believer in class discussion of such questions as arise out of moral
problems, questions of honor, of duty, or of truth. The problem
for the class may be the definition of some of these terms. Such
exercises easily draw the interest of most classes, and, besides, they
offer permanent values. Such work requires a high degree of skill
and tact on the part of the teacher, but it is capable of such infinite
variation in form, from the plain, realistic classroom to the senate
or committee room or formal dinner, that it comes perhaps as near
to efficient speech training for practical life as anything could.

Upon a second type of material I want to lay especial stress—
that is, the story. This is a day par excellence of drama and
dramatizing. Let the story and the epic spirit not be lost from
the reckoning. These are essential to right development in the
art of speech, and the story supplies a most valuable material for
the teacher, especially in that most difficult second year of the
high school. I mean now not the mere anecdote from the boy’s
experience, nor the newest story in the magazines or the latest
book; not 1 ise, but the old, old, world-tales, myths, and legends.
Here is a mi. ©: material for the teacher of speech, material that
interests the b- , and girl, is of perennial interest to the teacher with
any spirit of life in him, and provides permanent values in a high
degree. These stories having been told and retold therefore lend
themselves to new telling. Second-year classes will listen with
rapt attention while a pupil tells the story of Pan and Syrinz,
of Cupid and Psyche, or of Thor and his hammer, of Loki, or the
tales of Odysseus or of Arthur.

Nor would I have these memorized. The pupil does better to
read repeatedly the story he is to tell to the class until it is his
story. Then let it come in his own words, some of which, by the .

6 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

way, will not have been his before he read the tale; it will get fresh
order, new turns of phrase; but the story will be there, because
these old tales are tales to be told. They live by telling, are killed
by writing. So the teacher of speech may render today no greater
service to the teaching of literature and life than through the train-
ing of pupils in the telling of the classical story. This material,
introduced early in the school course, is certain to reinforce all the
literature study of the later years, and to remove the evil stigma
that now attaches in third- and fourth-year classes to a knowledge
of, or even acquaintance with, the classics.

Upon the familiar ground of strictly memorized work it is not
necessary to dwell—only to say that it is of no less importance
than ever. The scheme of school that would belittle the well-
chosen memory work of the speech class rests upon an altogether
inadequate notion of the end of education. Memory material
should be used in large quantities, and should cover a wide range.
It should be selected for both specific and permanent worth, for
rhythm, for diction, for sentiment. And memorizing should mean
such an assimilation of the material that the speaking organism
responds to the thought and feeling of the passage. Automatically
senseless repetition of successive sounds is neither useful nor edify-
ing. There must be real translation of the printed symbols into the
terms of speech.

The dramatic and debate work carries us more directly in the
direction of that lesser group of pupils already referred to. Dra-
matic work, from the simple reading of plays in class in the lower
grades to the actual staging of plays by pupils of the upper grades,
is of the highest worth, though in danger of overemphasis, I think.
I do not favor indiscriminate dramatizing. It is not necessary to
reduce all fiction to dramatic form, though in a limited degree the
process is useful in visualizing parts of most novels used in schools.
But two real values the drama has for our purposes. First, it
appeals to the interest of a very large number of pupils, simply
because they are human. In the second place, the dramatic work,
properly handled, affords, for a large number of pupils, exercises
that may be adapted to variously limited capacities, under con-
ditions that make severe training possible and practicable.

SPEECH TRAINING IN PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOLS 7

The staging of real plays should be a regular part of each
term’s work. I think the work of no English class that is reading a
play complete until the class reading has been conducted on the
school stage with some suggestion of the action and business that
the words are supposed to accompany. But the more finished
work should be done as thoroughly as is possible, always with an
eye to the general worth of the performance rather than to the
exploiting of one or two stars. Some Shakespearian material
should be attempted, not because the work will be of a high degree
of excellence, though occasionally it may be; but, for one reason,
because this way lies an added and living interest in Shakespeare,
and, for another reason, because the presenting of Shakespeare
makes speech training possible.

Argumentation, as a general process, calls for speech training,
and it supplies, in the elementary forms referred to, as well as in the
more advanced classes, ample occasion for the teacher of oral
English. As a process, argumentation is, in general, a means of
reaching decisions, of whatever sort, in actual life. The material
for this sort of study, then, should be simple, as simple as the
decisions necessary in the lives of the great mass of pupils, boys
and girls. The discussion of various vocations, social conduct under
given conditions, amusements, values of studies—all these offer
appropriate material; and then the work may be extended to
economic and political themes. In the upper years this work
involves the gathering and organizing of limited amounts of
material and then its effective, logical, and persuasive presen-
tation.

Formal debate, however, as we understand the term today,
though it is pre-eminently the speech side of argumentation, is for
the very few-—a highly technical game for those whose abilities are
worth the effort necessary for efficient training. Far more harm
than good is done by slipshod debating in classes where themes
beyond the reach of the pupils are dealt with. Debate involves a
very special sort of decision. It demands a highly specialized type
of organizing mind, and severe training in that most trying exercise,
extemporaneous speech. It is not an instrument for general use
in teaching either speaking or writing.

ones

. eo
° . «|
rent tg At

Sie
tM OT Ft aOR OF

«

2
-
4

8 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

In conclusion, the material of speech training supplies in a
high degree the elements of beauty and pleasure, the needed emo-
tional content of the public-high-school course, but it must also be
of a character to justify and demand severe training, whether in the
craft or art of speech. The groundwork of good speech consists
of elements very definite and tangible. Once these principles are
systematized and recognized as universal, I think that, in addition
to all their other values, they offer another hope of possible real
discipline in a time of multiplied laxness. Their place must grow
larger in the English program of the high school.

RESEARCH PROBLEMS IN VOICE AND SPEECH"

SMILEY BLANTON
University of Wisconsin

HE amount of work done upon research problems in voice and
speech training will depend largely upon the emphasis the
teacher places upon this work. If it be felt that the only voice work
needed is a few exercises or some small advice offered to the ex-
pression or speech-making classes, then to such a teacher research
problems in voice training will be of little interest. But those
teachers who believe that a well-planned course in voice training
is as properly a part of the curriculum as courses in speech-making
or vocal expression, believe that research problems in voice train-
ing should occupy an important place in the discussions of public
teachers.

The problems of teaching speech-making, vocal expression, and
voice training are sometimes confused. I think better results are
obtained by sharply separating them, wherever possible, and giving
a separate course for each subject. In the voice-training class the
student should master the elements of vocal expression, as inflection,
change of pitch, phrasing, and should learn how always to have an
adequate tone. In the class in vocal expression the student puts
these elements into practice. The expression teacher does not
want to have to stop the student who is trying to interpret some
lyric or dramatic passage to give training for inflection or change of
pitch. The elements of vocal expression are gained only when
the student has the mental activity that calls for such modulation.
And hence a mastery of these elements means that the student has
a well-poised mind capable of vigorous concentration. Dr. G. Hud-
son Mackuen, professor of speech defects in the Philadelphia Poly-
clinic Hospital, says:

To teach action and all the various and complicated co-ordinating move-
ments of the speech muscles, and to bring them under conscious and voluntary

* Read at the Convention of the National Association of Academic Teachers of
Public Speaking, Chicago, November, 1915.

9

gt 7 wes
Sieh a cal al
fein

hettemmme oe 5

—

ali all

a

as,
rs

of
‘
:
ia
ae
‘ Ls?
4
a
*

.
>.”
A
a
*)
?
Ls
b,
.

-
~ SY oo.

ot a yf Se

“a ox

aes,
=.

a

10 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

control, as is done in speech and voice training, must necessarily arouse the
brain cells to activity and healthful exercise to a degree that is not surpassed,
if indeed it be equaled, by any other kind of training. The training of speech,
therefore, affording as it does a healthful and pleasurable mental exercise,
must constitute a most valuable means for developing the faculties of the mind.

An immense amount of time and energy has been put upon the
singing voice, but practically nothing has been done in the way of
research concerning the speaking voice. Until some research has
been done along this line I think departments of public speaking
will not generally offer courses in this part of the field. Where
every instructor is teaching a different method, who shall decide
which is the correct one? Some scientific work upon the problems
of voice training will accomplish two much-needed results: it will
give a body of assured and tested facts which the teacher can use
in the classroom, and it will enable him to tell the good books on
voice training from the poor ones. When writers can say (I quote
from actual books found in the libraries of two of our large uni-
versities; I must add, however, that the books were sent by the
publishers and were not ordered by the departments) that “the
tip of the tongue makes the tone instead of the vocal cords”;
that “the false vocal cords ‘make the tone”; that “English speech
is produced by inspired breath”; that “the false vocal cords are
used to keep the food from entering the lungs”; that “the chest
is expanded by expanding the diaphragm,” and can find reputable
publishers to publish their books, it is high time that some work
was done whereby facts can be distinguished from the weird theories
of some “‘successful” voice teacher.

Research problems should be along two lines: first, problems
of fact, dealing with the structure and action of the different parts
of the vocal mechanism and the relation of the emotions to the
voice; and secondly, teaching problems, how best to adapt these
facts to the conditions in different institutions.

The vocal mechanism may be divided into three parts: (1) the
motive power; (2) the vibrating part, and (3) the resonating cham-
bers and articulatory organs. The motive power of the vocal
mechanism consists of the lungs, inclosed in an airtight box (the
chest), the sides of which are composed of ribs; between the ribs

RESEARCH PROBLEMS IN VOICE AND SPEECH II

are muscles, and on the bottom is a diaphragm, domed upward like an
inverted soup bowl, separating the lungs from the abdominal cavity.

The first problem in voice training concerns the best, easiest,
and most efficient way to enlarge the chest so that the lungs will
fill with air. There are three ways in which this can be d ne:
by raising the upper six ribs, clavicular or chest breathing; by
raising the lower ribs, rib breathing; and by contracting the dia-
phragm, diaphragmatic breathing. The best method can be deter-
mined by a study of the anatomy and physiology of the parts, by
the quality of the voice produced with each of these methods, and
by physiological experiments to determine which method gives the
most air and the best controi of the expired air. Clavicular or upper-
chest breathing for voice is advocated by few teachers, because the
upper ribs are less flexible than the lower ribs, and also there rest
upon them the breast muscle and fat, the weight of which has to
be raised every time the ribs are raised. Not enough air is gained
by this method, and the air inspired is not easily controlled. This
method is so inadequate that it requires no elaborate experiments
to prove its lack of efficiency. Lower-rib breathing—that is,expand-
ing the chest by raising the lower ribs—is advocated by some as the
best method of breathing for voice; I agree, however, with Aiken
in advocating a combination of lower-rib breathing and dia-
phragmatic breathing, called central breathing.

It is very desirable that some experiments be done to prove
which of these methods is the best for giving results with the
speaking voice. We cannot abide by the findings of the singing-
teachers in this matter.

The best method is to be tested by, first, the quality of the tone
produced by the different methods. Care must be taken, however,
that the individual, in making the tone, is really using the method
of breathing that he thinks he is using. I have sometimes found
teachers using a different method of breathing from the one they
thought they were using. It is necessary to resort to the physio-
logical laboratory to test the method of breathing used, as well as
the amount of air obtained by each method and its control. By
means of a pneumograph fastened around the chest and one around
the lowest ribs, so arranged that any movement of the upper or

ge i ih mg arene a

a ae
- ay a - a ee tee - - oe
7M OM aie Se Pte PPI ay Were <i “tepaagt Foo ky eH. rH ven
. ee 7 eR Rie st d.
2 Kh oes Bk ~ y 4 a ee no edt WAN 8 £

. —-~ He
Lge ee

12 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

lower chest is communicated to a needle which rests against a
revolving drum upon which is a layer of smoked paper, every
movement of the chest in breathing and speaking can be recorded
and studied. Thus while the individual is speaking or making
tone we can see what method of breathing he is really using.
Through the use of the spirometer the amount of air obtained by
each method can be accurately determined. By the tracings of
the needle attached to the pneumographs the control of the breath
in speaking can be determined.

After the kind of breathing has been determined through the
use of pneumographs attached to needles writing on the smoked ©
drum, the efficiency of the method can be determined by (1) the
quality of the tone as decided by the ear, (2) the amount of the air
obtained, (3) (what is more important) the control of the expired
air as determined by the tracing. Of course many experiments
of different persons would have to be performed before we could
draw any conclusions.

Support of tone, what it means and how it is best accomplished,
is a question over which there is much difference of opinion among
teachers of voice training. A brief résumé of the anatomy and
physiology of the motive power of the voice will show what is meant
by “‘support of tone.” When the diaphragm contracts it pushes
upon the abdominal viscera and they, being almost incompressible,
push out in all directions. The easiest way for them to expand
is in the front. So the abdominal walls bulge out with each expan-
sion of the diaphragm. If the abdominal walls are well developed
they tend to return to their former position, and this resiliency
causes pressure upon the diaphragm through the intervening
organs; and when the diaphragm relaxes, the relaxation is given
added force by the pressure of the abdominal walls. Without this
pressure the relaxation of the diaphragm lacks snap, and the tones
are weak and poor. The problem then is to find the best way to
keep the proper pressure in the abdominal cavity so there will be
enough pressure exerted on the diaphragm so that it will relax with
sufficient force to give strong, good tones.

Some voice and singing teachers, especially women, advocate
the raising of the lower ribs so high that the abdominal walls will be

RESEARCH PROBLEMS IN VOICE AND SPEECH 13

drawn inward, thus creating the needed pressure. This means
that the individual is using the lower ribs chiefly for breathing
purposes, the diaphragm playing a secondary réle in inspiration.
I do not think this is the best method of supporting the tone for
speaking. The abdominal walls in the woman are naturally more
lax than in the man, and after she has borne children or with the
advancing years they become more lax and weaker. Women
find greater need than do men to resort to measures for getting
support of tone. I think that it would be better to wear an ab-
dominal bandage or properly made stays to get the needed degree
of abdominal pressure rather than to use chiefly the lower-rib
method of breathing. Of course the wisest thing to do, if possible,
is to take exercises for the abdominal muscles so that they will have
naturally the needed resiliency.

The testing of the efficiency of these three methods of getting
support of tone (the lower-rib method, the wearing of abdominal
support, and the training of the abdominal muscles) could be
decided by seeing which method gave the best tones, the most
prolonged tones, the most breath, and the best control of the
breath.

Before proceeding to the discussion of the problems connected
with the vibrating part of the vocal mechanism I should like to
mention the great need of defining the terms used by the vocal
teacher. “Control of breath,” “registers of the voice,” “dia-
phragmatic breathing”’—all these terms, and many others, are used
with different meanings by different teachers. We hope to see
in the next few years some unanimity in the use of terms, so that
when a term is seen in one book, we can be reasonably sure that it
is used in the same way in which it is used in the other books.
One of the important problems for those interested in research to
accomplish is to define the terms used in voice training, and to
persuade the teachers in this field to use the terms only with the
defined meanings.

One would suppose that there would be agreement on such an
obvious question as, Where is the tone produced? And yet there
is disagreement over this very question. In the October number of
the Quarterly Miss Clara Kathleen Rogers says there are two kinds

14 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

of voice, one made by “the legitimate primary vibration of the
vocal cords.” This is called the fundamental voice. The other
type of voice, the false voice, is made, “as is held by a number of
writers on the subject,”’ by the false vocal cords. This statement
that some of the tone is made with the false vocal cords is found
in a considerable number of the books on voice training. Kirk’s
Handbook of Physiology, however (1914 edition, p. 520), says:

It has been proved by observation on living subjects, by means of the
laryngoscope, as well as by experiments on the larynx taken from the body, that
the sound of the human voice is the result of the vibration of the inferior laryn-
geal ligaments, or the true vocal cords, caused by currents of expired air impelled
over their edges.

The proof that the tone is made by the vocal cords alone is
overwhelming. First, by observation of the vocal cords during
the production of the tone it is seen that the cords alone vibrate;
secondly, the anatomy of the false vocal cords is such that they
could not produce tone, for they cannot stretch and relax so as to
give pitch and inflection to the tone; thirdly, if the larynx be taken
from the body and the vocal cords cut away, no tone can be pro-
duced by forcing the air through the larynx. On the other hand,
if all parts of the false cords be cut away tone can be produced
by forcing air between the edges of the closed vocal cords.

There is no doubt that some tones sound well rounded and
supported while others sound weak and superficial, though this
difference is not caused by a different formation of the primary
tone, but is due to the difference in the breathing and the size,
condition, and shape of the resonance chambers. There is an
interesting problem, however, in discovering just how the different
registers of the voice are produced; and there is a very practical
problem for speakers as well as singers to determine what is meant
by placing the tone and how to test whether the tone is properly
placed.

If more evidence is desired of the function of the true and false
vocal cords it should be obtained by a careful study of the anatomy
and physiology of the vocal cords, by a manipulation of the larynx
outside the body, and by direct and indirect observation of the
vocal cords while making tones in different pitches. The problem

RESEARCH PROBLEMS IN VOICE AND SPEECH 15

of placing the tone can be solved by the trained ear, if it be com-
bined with the knowledge of the mechanism of the larynx.

Problems connected with the resonance chambers and the num-
ber and difference between the vowels are so complicated that I
think they may be left to the physicist and the phonetician.

The relation of the emotions to the voice and of how the emo-
tions shall be used with regard to training are the two most practical
and important questions that teachers of voice training have to
meet in their work. Mr. Phillips has made a very excellent attempt
in his “tone system” to use the emotions in training the voice.
This is a move in the right direction, but I think before we can
adequately use the emotions in training the voice a proper classi-
fication will be necessary. In the tone system Mr. Phillips says
that there are fifty-seven emotions that can be employed for
developing the voice. Among these emotions are mentioned sar-
casm and irony, awe and grandeur, anger and rage. For practical
purposes there is no distinction between the emotions in the
couplets. Of course there is an intellectual difference, but not
enough to cause a constant and real physiological change in the
muscles of the vocal mechanism. And it is only difference in the
muscles of the vocal mechanism that causes a change in the tone.
Then, too, I should object to the use of anger and fear and their
variants in the training of the voice, because, as Dr. Cannon has
shown, these unpleasant emotions contract and harden the muscles
and affect the digestion and the internal secretions. The physio-
logical classification of the emotions according to their bodily
effects is one that the voice-teacher can use." He is not concerned
with an intellectual classification. What is needed is some research
work to determine the effect of the different primary emotions, as
anger, fear, and love, on the parts of the vocal mechanism. I do
not think it is practical to ask the immature student to express
vocally such complicated emotions as irony or grandeur. A wider
choice must be left the student. We may strive to have him feel
pleasant or loving or admiring, but the exact shade of the emotions
he feels must be left to him.

* See “The Voice and the Emotions” in the Quarterly for July, 1915, p. 154.

16 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

Much work remains to be done on these problems and they must
be solved before we can have an adequate system of voice training;
but in the solution all that physiology and psychology have to
offer must be taken into account.

To be considered separately are the educational problems
mentioned at the beginning of this paper. The first thing to decide
is, What is the proper content of a well-planned course in voice
training, and what are the aims and results of such a course?
Among the other questions that confront the thoughtful and pro-
gressive teacher are, whether the voice work should be separated
from the course in speech-making and expression or given as part
of these courses. And if the voice training is to be given in con-
junction with this work, how much time shall be devoted to it, and
shall this voice work be given on days set apart for it, or shall a
short part of each period be devoted to voice training. Teachers
vary in their opinions all the way from those declaring that no
voice training shall be given at all, to those who believe, as do the
members of the public-speaking departments at Cornell and Wis-
consin, that voice training is important enough to have a separate
course devoted to it for which full credit is given. There are some
teachers who say that voice training should be used only in a
corrective way for those students who have some definite defect
of speech or voice.

Before deciding these problems let us get the results of careful
investigation in this division of our work. Nothing is gained by
putting one teacher’s opinion against another’s. What is needed
is for us to try out these different plans in the classroom and see
which one works best. In working upon these various problems,
in both their scientific and their teaching aspects, our methods
should be more comprehensive than the theories and methods of
any single school. We should take truth wherever we find it,
but before accepting it let us apply to it the test of scientific truth
to see whether it is really truth or merely the plausible theory to
explain the success which has been gained by some winning and
pleasing personality.

The following syllabus may be a helpful tentative outline of
some of the problems here mentioned:

RESEARCH PROBLEMS IN VOICE AND SPEECH 17

RESEARCH PROBLEMS IN VOICE TRAINING

A. Fact problems. Dealing with the structure and action of the different
parts of the vocal mechanism, and the relation of the mind to the voice.

I. Motive power.
1. Investigation to determine the best method of breathing for voice.
(a) Upper chest breathing.
(5) Lower rib breathing.
(c) Diaphragmatic breathing.
(d) Combinations of foregoing methods.
a) Methods of investigation.
(1) Test the quality of the tone and speech produced by each
method.
(2) Test the amount of air given by each method and its control.
6) Instruments.
(1) Revolving drum such as used in physiological laboratories.
(2) Suitable paper which can be smoked and fastened to the
drum.
(3) Spirometer—to test amount of expired air.
2. Support of tone.
(a) Find out the meaning of this term by a study of the
anatomy and physiology of the parts.
(5) How can support of tone best be accomplished ?
@) Method—same as in breathing.
II. Vibrating part.
1. Where is the tone produced ?
a) Method.
(1) Study of the anatomy and physiology of the larynx.
(2) Observation of the vocal cords during tone production.
(3) Experiments on the larynx outside the body.
6) Instruments.
(1) Laryngoscope.
(2) Head mirror.
(3) Wall light.
(4) Human or sheep larynx.
III. Resonance chambers.
1. The relation of the condition, size, and shape of the chambers to
the quality of the voice.
IV. Relation of the emotions to the voice.

B. Educational problems.
I. What should be the content of a well-planned course in voice training ?
II. Should the voice-training work be given in a separate course or as
part of the course in speech-making or vocal expression ?

INTERPRETATIVE PRESENTATION VERSUS
IMPERSONATIVE PRESENTATION'

MAUD MAY BABCOCK
University of Utah

prroM the reports of the Elocutionists’ and Speech Arts asso-
ciations it would appear that the members of our profession
are divided as to when and where to impersonate and when and
where to interpret. At one convention it took three days to force
a vote on a motion that the “Bugle Song” should be given sub-
jectively and not objectively, that is, interpreted and not imper-
sonated. Only a few members wished to place themselves on
record by their vote—some probably hesitating because it might
condemn their own practices, and others not voting because they
were unconvinced as to which was the proper method. So the
question seems, as yet, to be debatable.

What shall be understood as interpretative presentation ?
What by impersonative presentation? That we may discuss the
question intelligently, that there may be no misunderstanding,
we may define interpretation as the presentation of any form of
literary material—lyric or dramatic, humorous or burlesque, narra-
tive or allegorical—without the aid of dress, furniture, stage settings,
or of literal characterizations in voice, action, or make-up. Such
presentation must be content with suggesting the real thing to the
imagination of the audience. Interpretation means translation—
literary interpretation, a translation from a dead printed form into
living, breathing experience. It is an appeal to the imagination.
Impersonation, on the other hand, is an attempt to give exact,
literal characterization in voice, action, and make-up, in realistic
surroundings of dress, furniture, and stage settings. It is the art
of embodying a creation by giving it flesh and blood, and thereby
making the figure to live which exists in imagination. According

* Read at the convention of the National Association of Academic Teachers of

Public Speaking, Chicago, 1915.
18

INTERPRETATIVE VS. IMPERSONATIVE PRESENTATION 19

to this differentiation, then, impersonative presentation will be
confined to the stage and the drama, while interpretative pres-
entation will naturally and of necessity be limited to the platform
and deal with various forms of literature. The reader is always
himself while the actor is always someone else.

May we accept as a standard of adaptability to platform pres-
entation, the principle that only those means which will give
unity and harmony to the selection and which will help us to under-
stand the literature better shall be used; while, on the other hand,
all means which detract from the purpose of the author, or distract
the listener, or anything which is contrary to the purpose of inter-
pretation shall be discarded? Impersonative treatment violates
this standard, since it destroys the unity and harmony of a selec-
tion by detracting from the purpose of the author, and also since
it distracts the listener by directing his attention to the how rather
than the what of that which is being read, and further destroys the
purpose of interpretation by appealing to the visible rather than
the imaginative. Impersonation cannot, therefore, be considered
as helpful in interpretation, or even as harmless, but must be set
down as absolutely baneful to platform presentation, and hence
to be discarded.

Impersonation destroys the unity and harmony of reading,
since the mechanics of impersonation make it impossible to pass
quickly and unnoticeably enough from one character to another,
from the description to the characterization, or from character-
ization to description, without distracting the attention of the
audience and leaving the listener in doubt and uncertainty as to
the author’s conception. On the stage each person assumes only
the task of representing one character, and all descriptions and
stage settings are made in such a semblance of reality that the
actor has no difficulty in making transitions.

Changes of dress and scene, even by “lightning-change artists,”
produce transformations which take time and cause the audience
to lose interest in the theme and busy itself in the interval with the
changes of face, body, hair, or coat-collar. In the actor, his change
into only one character has been made before we see him; the
modus operandi does not disturb us, the mechanics have been

20 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

hidden behind “the scenes.”” The performer may have such con-
trol over his body that we may see Dr. Jekyll transformed into
Mr. Hyde before our eyes, but our eyes are so engrossed in the
means of change that the idea is likely to be lost. However, Mr.
Mansfield did it so easily that the mechanics were forgotten in the
great spiritual transformation—a great artistic achievement.

A young woman interested in elocution hied herself to the
cultured East to study the art. After two or more years she
appeared in our midst and gathered about her a group of students.
In a few months she presented her pupils in a recital in one of our
theaters in order to show her methods of teaching. The program
lasted from 2:00 o’clock until after 6:30—how long after I can’t
say, for only two-thirds of her program was finished when I had
to leave on account of another engagement. Each “piece” was
set with scenery, and stage properties, and the hours were con-
sumed in long waits for change of scenery, interspersed with some
elocution and posing. Imagine an entire stage-setting for Bret
Harte’s Entertaining Her Big Sister’s Beau! ‘The audience was
bewildered to see a child talking to a man who made no reply, but
sat in dumb show, and the stilted, unnatural language of the poem
was made more evident by such realistic treatment. In another
selection the audience was mystified as to its meaning, since there
were two or more scenes in the story and only one was shown on
the stage. How could the poor people be expected to imagine
a change of scene, or that the young man went into a house and
upstairs, when they saw before them only an our-door setting and
the young man talking to a chair? Again, how could they know
when he knelt in the middle of the floor that he was no longer
talking to the supposed man in the chair, but to a corpse on the
floor? The story was lost and the audience bewildered by such
impersonative treatment. The sense of the author was entirely
destroyed, the unity and harmony of the selection marred, by the
impersonation. Anything that distracts the reader and listener
away from the sense is “from our purpose.”

It would be hard to say just why readers desire to exploit
themselves as impersonators or imitators of bells, bugles, birds,
or beasts, or accompany their work with music, or costume it,

INTERPRETATIVE VS. IMPERSONATIVE PRESENTATION 21

unless it be to surprise the audience with the startling and extraor-
dinary, the unusual and marvelous. Since they cannot convey
the author’s purpose so well, and since impersonation defeats the
end in literature, it must be for personal display. Real literature
will not lend itself to such imitative treatment, and there are few,
if any, opportunities in things of literary worth to exploit one’s
ability as an entertainer. Such imitators entertain their audiences,
therefore, with “new pieces” and monologues, and avoid anything
of literary excellence. The foremost of such entertainers placed
only one piece of literature, Kipling’s “If,” on her program. Why
she chose this selection—a straight piece of difficult reading, one
long, involved, sustained sentence, just the kind of material such
an impersonator can never handle—is a question, unless she was
in ignorance of its difficulty.

From the reports of the Speech Arts conventions it appears
that some of our colleagues considered that it was more artistic
not to impersonate upon the platform, but thought it necessary
to do so as certain audiences liked impersonation better. How
can one tell, without trying both ways at the same time, which
an audience will enjoy more? Shall the audience be the instructor
and tell us how best to proceed? Granted that the entertainer
may receive more personal adulation for his “exhibitions,” we
may find it difficult to sacrifice the delicious praise of the public,
but the great artist always decides that the content is the only
thing worth while. Alfred Ayres, to whom we owe a debt of grati-
tude for planting our feet on an intellectual basis, said: “When you
read and your audience indicates that it’s all right, nothing startling,
just as any one would say it, then you can set it down, and thank
God for it, that you are one in a million who could read it that
way.” That is an ideal worth while adopting as our goal—if we
have the courage!

If we turn our attention to specific literary forms, we may be
able to get at this matter more concretely. In the lyric, for
example, the thought is set to a rhythm—a series of varying wave-
lengths—a rhythm always in accord with the sense of the selection,
as opposed to meter, which is often out of harmony with the idea.
The fitting of sound to sense in the lyric does not demand an

22 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

impersonation with the voice, not an imitation of the thing talked
about, but can be more clearly and more impressively portrayed
by tone-color, that subtle quality of voice which suggests the sense
subjectively. This does not mean imitation of bugles, bird notes,
bells, moaning, groaning, tremolos—all this rubbish which has
brought our profession into disrepute with the thinking public.
Such reading only lumbers and hampers the sense, so that neither
reader nor listener is able to get it. One of our colleagues at a
convention argued: “These qualities, bugle notes, trills, and the
like have their place, but it is a secondary one, and they are not
the end.” Where is the place for such vocal rubbish when it
beclouds and befogs the author’s meaning, and the audience gets
nothing but vocal gymnastics ?

So befogged was my mind with the imitation of the bugle
which I had been taught to imitate that it took me years to under-
stand that Tennyson’s “ Bugle Song”’ was not written as a selection
for vocal pyrotechnics, but that the author was singing of human
influence which “rolled from soul to soul.”” Not only is the mean-
ing obscured by the imitation, but a false impression is given.

Indirect discourse, particularly description, is most difficult
material to handle. To make it interesting and hold the attention,
many act out the thing described, instead of relating it as though
it were a very present drama—enacted not in the past but living
in the pictorial present. If the audience can see by your face that
the ideas are spontaneous, you will have rapt attention. If the
reader not only brings out the ideas with spontaneity, but also
attacks the page with a sympathetic interest, the audience cannot
but be swept along.

A question frequently arises in the mind of every earnest,
honest student, as to how far one may go toward impersonation in
an impassioned description or narration. So long as we remain the
spectator, allowing the emotion to affect us as such, and do not
become the participator, the illusion will be sustained. In other
words, if the scene is held as if enacted, but we do not become an
actor in the scene, we may allow our feelings and emotions full rein.

The indirect discourse found in the allegory needs tobe
approached from a little different angle. Here the person, action,

INTERPRETATIVE VS. IMPERSONATIVE PRESENTATION

23

or picture is seen, but seen as translated into spiritual truth, a
truth divined by the reader and caught by the audience through
awakened sympathetic understanding. Since the story is symbolic,
and has as its aim an awakening to higher moral purpose, the
spiritual reality must be impressed rather than the picturesque
outside. The allegory is always the illuminative method of reaching
a spiritual truth. The treatment should be therefore illuminative
and figurative, never realistic, and told through a symbolic color-
ing of the ideas.

A combination of indirect and direct presents to some a difficult
problem. Direct discourse looms up as the most important task,
and in going full length into it by impersonation, the indirect
material, very necessary to explain and clarify the direct, is swal-
lowed as a disagreeable yet indispensable medicine. So we have
elaborate impersonations, while descriptions and explanations
are delivered as if they were of no use but to be thrown on the
rubbish pile. The attention of the reader should be focussed on
the importance of indirect discourse and an effort should be made
to bring about a unity when these two forms of literature are com-
bined. These “betweens”’ should receive the same treatment as
that given to all descriptions and narrations. The pictures must
be seen and the scenes enacted in the imagination of the reader.
Stage directions, exits and entrances, should be treated as indirect
discourse and carefully held up with the dialogue. In the interpre-
tation of a drama many platform artists feel the necessity of walk-
ing across the stage to a supposed entrance, and then make an
entry as the character. This may much more easily be done and
with far less confusion and distraction to the listener by seeing the
entrance from the standpoint of the spectator. This will apply
to all stage directions, for they should be placed with great definite-
ness in the imagination of the audience, through a graphic, inter-
ested picturing by the reader.

Last year I attended the début of a young reader in Romeo and
Juliet. She was attired in a flowing white robe and flowing light
wig—lI suppose after the manner of Juliet. (Had she been a man
would she have been clad as Romeo?) At every exit, entrance,
or announcement of character, after the most florid personation,

by er
* sce Sos

yy.

te BAe

rad

-

eee
= :

w

+! somae

r = Ph. Se
orate RS Rear 2o > 5 os ater et 2m * Sg - 2 » -
RE ES Rar ge ee es a aie NE Nn oa
«es . tte EO ba 23 -

24 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

she would drop to abject, apologetic commonplace. It is vividly
before me how she agonized the death of Juliet and ended:

“Yea, noise? Then I'll be brief. O! happy Dagger!
This is thy sheath; there rest and let me die.
Falls on Romeo’s body and dies.”

That anything may be endured in the name of elocution is the
only reason such burlesque will be tolerated. Treatment such as
I have just illustrated may be permitted for burlesque, since its
purpose is to make ridiculous through exaggeration. But even
here the impersonation must go no farther than will allow transi-
tions to be made easily, and presented without dress, properties,
etc. It is a sad commentary on our methods that only a dis-
criminating few recognize a burlesque when it is read, while the
majority mistake it for serious elocutionary effort.

In direct discourse the spirit of the character should be given
by suggestive bodily and vocal expression, without any attempt
to represent the exact outward person. Stress how the person
feels rather than how he looks or sounds—be concerned with the
content of the character rather than the form. Go as far as the
illumination of character, which we are aiming at, enables you to
avoid explanation, but not far enough to dispel the illusion, nor
so far but that you may slip easily into another character or back
to the narrator. In impersonation the object should be to project
the soul rather than the body. There can then be no discussion
as to men impersonating women or women impersonating men.
Men and women will be portrayed as human beings, not as beings
of higher or lower pitch, oratund or normal, with falsetto or guttural
qualities. If you are imbued with the atmosphere and purpose of
the play, have you any time to discriminate physically between
Macbeth and his wife—except in the most suggestive manner—
when these two souls are in their death struggle to obtain the goal
before them? Of necessity, if one feels the character, the body,
face, and voice will take upon themselves a suggestiveness which
will reveal the person to the audience even more clearly at times
than a literal embodiment, since the appeal is to the imagination,
which can make perfect the suggestion.

INTERPRETATIVE VS. IMPERSONATIVE PRESENTATION 25

In an Elocutionists’ and Speech Arts Convention, during a
discussion as to whether Laby Macbeth should use the letter in
the letter scene or not, one member said: “I would use the letter,
but not the dagger in the dagger scene [Why this inconsistency
the deponent sayeth not.] It is perfectly justifiable for a woman
in impersonating Shylock to sharpen the knife on her shoe.”
[I suppose a man might be allowed the same privilege!] But under
no circumstances should one carry a candle in the sleep-walking
scene in Macbeth. It might be allowed that one might carry a
rose, or a pansy, but not a pistol; a ring, note-paper, handkerchief,
fan, but not a dish, nor food.”

Another member declared: ‘I may use a chair, I may change
my facial expression, I may roll my hair, but Lord forgive me for
kneeling, or wallowing on the floor, or kissing the hand of a lady
who is not there.” Another abhors “women personating toothless
old men.” What about men impersonating them ?

A popular reader was criticized because she knelt in rendering
the Bible story of Joseph. ‘‘She was with Joseph in the land of
Egypt,” said the critic, “and the kneeling was such a shock that
it brought her back to Chautauqua.” The reader’s defense for
kneeling was that her emotion had so overpowered her that she
was unconscious of it and that she might never be impelled to
kneel again. Are we to leave these matters to the whim of emotion
and occasion ?

So long as leading platform readers entertain their audiences
with such elevating, chanting impersonations, with a musical
accompaniment, as “There Is a Pain in My Sawdust,”’ just so long
have we a mission to set ourselves determinedly to the eradication
of such performances. What recognition can we find among the
cultured and learned when such exhibitions are tolerated? What
we need are prophets and reformers who will raise the standards
of entire communities by honest efforts at interpreting literature,
for the sake of the message, and not to exploit themselves. Such
effort will banish all the bow-wowers and sing-songers to the vaude-
ville—where they belong. So it behooves us to hold to our ideals,
know where we stand, what we purpose, and fight for the highest
and truest.

> A

THE ORATORICAL CONTEST—A SHOT IN THE DARK'

R. B. DENNIS
Northwestern University

ASTES differ. My tie is red, yours is blue. I disdain the

professorial rectitude of a cutaway, you dote on it. To me

the Saturady Evening Post is a glorious habit, to you it is so much

piffle. I am satisfied to own a Ford, you scorn the humble animal.

I hate to be called Professor, to you it is the breath of life. Yet

we can measure a quart of water, a foot of tape, an acre of ground,
a cord of wood, a ton of coal, and agree upon the result.

In which classification shall we place the oration, the oratorical
contest, and its judging? Strive as we will, we have not as yet
successfully put it in the latter class, and despite our best efforts
tastes still differ. (It is not my purpose here to consider the
possibility or advisability of placing it in the field of exact measure-
ments, though a paper might be prepared upon that topic with
benefit to many of us.)

It is carrying coals to Newcastle to tell this group anything
of the agony of spirit suffered by judges, be they trained in our
special field or be they not, for results differ about as widely when
presented by judges hand-picked from this group as when pre-
sented by highly spiritualized Methodist pastors, dry-as-dust
business men, or logical lawyers. The plea that judges shall be
chosen from our ranks, thus marking the end of all differences of
opinion as to the winners of oratorical contests, seems to me not
well based on a knowledge of facts, though it is a step in advance.
There is no person here who could not unfold a moving tale of the
idiocies—no, idiosyncrasies—of judges. Perhaps not a person here
who could not tell us in painful numbers of how his representative
would have won the last contest in the Aurora Borealis League if
one judge had not marked the unfortunate young man seventh;

1 Read at the Convention of the National Association of Academic Teachers of
Public Speaking, Chicago, November, 1915.
26

THE ORATORICAL CONTEST 27

seventh—think of it! Why, I remember when—but let that pass.
I refrain! Need I go farther? We have all heard contests when
we were certain the best man did not win.

It is again true that these conditions today are not much better
than they were fifteen years ago. Despite our best efforts we
have not cured the situation. What shall we do? Omit the
decision? Hear our contestants and retire to the local hostelry
for a late banquet, there to chew the cud of satisfaction over the
noble showing of our prize young man, while chasing the elusive
oyster with one hand and showering bouquets upon the repre-
sentative of a rival college with the other, and finally retiring to
couch or late train calm in the blissful certainty that had there
been a decision the crown must have fitted the bulging brow of a
young orator who shall be nameless? Indeed, there are certain
features of this method of procedure which recommend it to those
who have suffered from demoniacal decisions. Perhaps the only
reason we do not accept this plan is the fact that “‘hope springs
eternal” and that we intend to see that next year a better group
of judges is chosen, men who know their business, etc., and etc.
And, anyway, that lawyer Smith, from Kokomo, who gave first
place to Alabama, is a graduate of the state university there, and
we never knew it. Believe me, next year we’ll be more careful.
We can’t be stung twice in the same spot.

But before I die I want to judge one contest with a group of
men in our line of work, and before the contest I want certain
information to be placed before us, privately. I want to know
what the young man’s oration is for, what “end” he had in view
when he wrote it, to what kind of audience is it meant to appeal—
in others words, what he is aiming at! Howdothis? By answer-
ing two questions, perhaps. First, “‘What audience is this pre-
pared for?’’ Second, “What is the end in view?” To the first,
the contestant may reply, “the college-contest audience,” “‘a farm-
er’s grange,” “any popular audience.” “‘a commercial association,”
etc. To the second, “to persuade to a new belief, to move to
action, to make clear, to make impressive.”’ Phillips’ classification
is here used—any agreed on will serve. In other words, I want to
know the use he is going to make of that speech. And why not?

Phe ons Al tel 7

28 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

I do not hunt ducks with a Smith and Wesson 44, nor do I fish
for muskies with the same outfit I used as a kid to catch bullheads
from the railroad bridge. Nor does any skilled artisan or hunter
use an all-purpose tool or weapon. A ten-bore blunderbluss full
of BB’s may do for the amateur assassin of wild game, but it cannot
appeal to the man who knows his business, nor can the owner win
prizes at a clay-pigeon shoot.

And by the same token the speech that will win a decision from
a bench of judges will win nothing at the corner of Halsted and
Madison streets, and the reverse is equally true. The speech that
appeals to the pew-holders of a wealthy church will bore to extinc-
tion an anarchist meeting on the ’steenth floor of the Masonic
Temple; the fiery and florid appeal that brings tears to the horny-
handed sons of toil who are sitting on the jury in the case of Mrs.
Jones, who strangled her husband and is soon to be set free (this in
Chicago), would hang the lady if presented to the judge alone.

At a recent oratorical contest held during a meeting of Chinese
students of Middle West institutions of learning I had the dubious
honor and pleasure of being one of three judges to hear seven
contestants. Six of the seven speeches, it was interesting to note,
were on the subject of Chinese national preparedness. But this
interested me more. One man presented a plan for the formation
of a standing army, presented it in a manner that would have won
approval of a national committee who were seeking information
concerning detailed methods of organization, but presented a speech
that would have bored to somnolence a crowd of clamorous citizens
who wanted their patriotism to be turned to account. It was a good
speech—under certain circumstances, though not an “oration.” I
fear candidate No. 2 took the other extreme. On a soap box on a
corner in Hankow, if there be any red blood in the common citizens
of China, he would have started a mob hard to stop till every Jap
in sight had been exterminated. It, too, was a good speech—under
certain circumstances. Another pleaded for patriotism that was
willing to sacrifice in behalf of the country, a stirring speech which
would have moved any orderly assemblage—likewise a good speech,
under certain circumstances. But shot in the dark as they were,
each judge followed his individual bent, and the result was chaos.

THE ORATORICAL CONTEST 29

The calm, methodical, minute outline of a plan for national armies
pleased my scientific friend with the Ph.D. The blood-stirring,
somewhat bloodthirsty, appeal to the mob moved my radical friend.
And so we all disagreed. But had we been given the range, had
we seen the bull’s-eye the young men were shooting at, we should
have agreed much better. Instead, the plan of contest procedure
virtually said to each contestant, “‘Shoot at the horizon and the
judges will tell you which one shoots best.’”’ Note this, too.
After the contest my Ph.D. friend said, “That second man’s
speech would be a good one for a street crowd that he wanted to
move to wild enthusiasm, but it wouldn’t do here.”’ I said nothing,
but I ask you, ‘‘Why not ?”

Perhaps I cherish a vain hope. Perhaps no plan could be
evolved which would work. I am not sure that the one outlined
here would prove successful. Perhaps things as they are are good
enough. But I am not satisfied. If you are asked to deliver a
speech, you want to know things about that audience, you have an
end in sight; and how may I as a critic criticize you unless I know
your aim? Granted that I am of the audience, know its mood,
its education, its ideals, I can judge of the effectiveness of your
effort. But this is not true of the contest judge.

Nor does this do away with standards—right standards. But
it will puncture any individual, if such a man there be, who thinks
all speeches may be measured with the same tape line, who would
make Jim Stewart, the labor organizer, and Percival Smythe, the
Woman’s Club lecturer, and John Maynard, the successful jury
pleader, and Roger Edwards, the corporation lawyer, all work alike.
Fundamentals will remain as they are, fundamentals in human
psychology, but manner and material used will vary. If stand-
ards mean orations cut much to the same pattern, orations listened
to by college audiences, but orations which would not as a rule be
listened to with enthusiasm by any other audience under heaven,
then I am afraid that I am through with such standards. But if
standards mean honest thinking, honest convictions, so presented
in word and manner that they fit into the experience of the audience
before which they are to be delivered; if they mean efficient speak-
ing as judged by an audience before which the speech might be

igs

Ce ae See ay
P #i ~~ $57 : Se
GS ee : Si He =
reer Sok amitpottns os a
™ SS ey 9 rs . UR he TAF Re
. . = * ede,
=

wears ee =
Fe ee ee eee

30 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

given in the everyday world, then I am for such standards. But
in altogether too many cases our classroom standards produce
orations which would fail miserably if delivered before any audience
other than a college-contest crowd. Perhaps it is all said when
one states that they produce “‘orations” and not speeches. I have
yet to hear any public speaker of note deliver an “oration,”
though I have heard several remarkable speeches.

To sum up. The whole purpose of my thought is to prepare
men better for the many demands of public life, to develop them
along varied, practical lines, to make them efficient within the
limits set all honest individuals—honesty and sincerity of thought
and purpose.

PUBLIC SPEAKING IN THE EARLY COLLEGES
AND SCHOOLS

ELMER HARRISON WILDS
Dakota Wesleyan University

a first college to be founded in America was Harvard College,
the first steps for its establishment being taken as early as
1636. From the first course of study of the new institution, devised
and adopted by President Dunster in 1642, we see that at its
foundation a provision was made for public address, even though
it was conducted entirely in Latin and Greek.

On Mondays and Tuesdays at 2:00 P.M. there were disputations
on set themes, somewhat after the manner of those in the early
German universities, the subject-matter varying in each of the
three classes, Freshmen, Junior Sophisters, and Senior Sophisters.
The president or one of the fellows acted as moderator at these
disputations. Every Friday morning at 8:00 a.m. each of the
three classes had a lesson in rhetoric, followed at 9:00 by declama-
tions. These were so ordered that every scholar should declaim
once each month.

In President Dunster’s time public declamations in Latin and
Greek and logical and philosophical disputations were held once
each month, “in the audience of the magistrates, ministers, and
other scholars,’* to test the progress of the students in learning
and godliness. After the first Commencement, in August, 1642,
the governor addressed a letter to his friends in England, stating
that he had heard the students’ “exercises, which were Latin and
Greek orations and declamations .... and disputations in
logical, ethical, physical, and metaphysical questions.”

Thus we can see that even in these earliest days much attention
was given to these disputations. The term always referred to

* Quoted from New England’s First Fruits.
2 C. G. Bush, History of Higher Education in Massachusetts, p. 34.
3

~

——————
et AE OG ge hl od =e

Sh Le: Ree ee

32 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

debates on such questions as are indicated above. The questions
smell of the lamp. They are children of the mediaeval schoolmen.
They are grammatical, rhetorical, philosophical. “Prudence is
the most difficult of all the Virtues.” “Justice is the mother of
all Virtue.” ‘‘No sin is committed unless one is a Free Agent.”
These represent the type.

But all of this work, valuable as it may have been in training
the powers of oral expression, was in the ancient tongues. No
forensic or oratorical work was conducted in the English language
until at least the middle of the eighteenth century. We quote
from one who was a student about that time:

I do not recollect now any part of the public exercises on Commencement
Day to be in English except the president’s prayers at opening and closing
the services. Next after the prayer followed the salutatory oration in Latin
by one of the candidates for the first degree. This office was assigned by the
president and was supposed to be given by him who was the best orator in the
class. Then followed a syllogistic disputation in Latin in which four or five
good scholars in the class were appointed by the president as respondents, to
whom were assigned certain questions which the respondents maintained, and
the rest of the class severally opposed and endeavored to invalidate. This was
conducted wholly in Latin. I do not recollect any forensic disputation, or
poem, or oration, spoken in English while I was in college. I well remember
that about the year 1757 or 1758 the exercise of the forensic disputation in
English was introduced and required of the two senior classes. And I think
it likely that about the same time it became a part of the commencement
exercises."

The introduction of debating in English into the curriculum at
this time is significant. In the middle of the eighteenth century,
a period of uncommon mental activity and brilliancy began in the
colonies. This was a period of great orators. The introduction of
practical public speaking into the curriculum is the first evidence
of a desire on the part of the college to adjust its training to practical
public needs.

The literary life of the time made its appeal to the ear rather than to the
eye. The writing of books was uncommon. There were few books to read.
The literary training which in the modern college is given largely through
reading was given in the first college largely through speaking. The early

* Letter of Judge Wingate in 1831, when ninety-two years of age, to Mr. Pierce,
historian of Harvard.

PUBLIC SPEAKING IN EARLY COLLEGES 33

oratorical culture of the college was argumentative and forensic. It was
felt . . . . that oratory was very useful and necessary, not only in all pro-
fessions of learning, but in any course of life whatever."

In the decades before the Revolution we see this form of the
higher education becoming more and more popular. The over-
seers of the college evidently felt that events in the near future
would create a demand fy oratory, for at a meeting of the board
in October, 1754, a committee was appointed to “project some
new method to promete oratory.” The committee made its
report, and in June,*-175$; the overseers voted that “as an intro-
duction to promoting ordtory and correct elocution among the

. students” the monthly public declamations in chapel be discon-
tinued, and that instead of this, “‘the president should select some
ingenious dialogue, either from Erasmus’ Colloguies or from some
other polite author, and that he should appoint as many students
as there are persons in such dialogue, each to personate a particular
character and to translate his part into correct English, and prepare
himself to deliver it in chapel in an oratorical manner.’? This
plan was evidently followed, for it is noted that in April, 1756, six
students gave in the presence of the overseers a dialogue in English
that they had translated from Castalio. This is plainly the begin-
ning of dramatic interpretation in English in the American college.

The overseers were so pleased with this effort that they recom-
mended that the young men “proceed as they had begun, that
they may not only render themselves ornaments to the college and
an honor to their country, but may also excite an emulation in
others to excell in eloquence and oratorical attainments. ’”

It was soon after this that forensic disputations in English were
required of the two upper classes, as reported by Judge Wingate.
The exhibition of 1756 was the beginning of public literary exhi-
bitions in our colleges that were so popular throughout most of the
nineteenth century. They were held semiannually at Harvard
at first, but gradually disappeared after 1870.

In 1757, the Freshmen and Sophomore classes began to read
before their tutors, on the Fridays when they were not required to

* Thwing, History of Higher Education in America, p. 28.

* Quoted from Overseers’ Records of Harvard University.

lon

34 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

declaim, ‘‘some celebrated orations, speeches, or dialogues in
Latin or English, in order that they they might be assisted in their
elocution or pronunciation.” The Juniors and Seniors were
required to give disputations in English “in the forensic manner,”
the subjects being assigned two weeks previously. In 1766 it was
ordered by the overseers that at the semiannual visitation of the
committee appointed by the overseers some of the scholars should
publicly exhibit their oratorical proficiency “by pronouncing
orations and delivering dialogues, or make such other forensic
display as the president and tutors should direct.’”

As the period of the Revolution approached, the importance of
eloquent speech was more and more realized. Through public
speech, the sentiments of the community in this time of excite-
ment and stress were fittingly expressed. The vital association
between the college and the community is shown by the intro-
duction of special instruction in public speaking at this time.
Up until 1766 each tutor had taught all branches of study assigned
to a class through its four years of college work. But in May of
that year each of the four tutors were given fixed subjects. An
extra tutor was provided for elocution and rhetoric. The plan
proposed:

That on Friday and Saturday mornings each class shall be instructed by
a distinct Tutor, in Elocution, Composition in English, Rhetoric, and other
parts of the Belles-lettres.?

In 1781 the question of promoting the greatest proficiency in
oratory again engrossed the attention of the overseers. It was
decided that the students who distinguished themselves in the
oratorical work in class should be selected by the professors and
tutors to exhibit their proficiency to the overseers at their visita-
tions.

Nicholas Boylston, who died in 1771, by his will left £1,500
for the establishment of a professorship of rhetoric and oratory.
In 1804 the funds had so accumulated that the corporation felt
safe in establishing the chair which still bears his name. The

* Bush, History of Higher Education in Massachusetts, p. 70.
? From “ Plan for the Distribution of Tutors’ Work and Service”’ in the secretary’s
minutes of a meeting of the overseers (1766).

PUBLIC SPEAKING IN EARLY COLLEGES 35

first to hold the chair was John Quincy Adams, who was installed
in June, 1806. His duties were limited to a course of public lec-
tures before the resident graduates and the Seniors and Juniors,
and to attendance upon the declamations of these classes. In
1810, by request of the students who had been under his instruction,
he published his lectures.t In 1817, Ward N. Boylston, a nephew
of Nicholas Boylston, established a fund of $1,000, and directed
that the income from this should be distributed in prizes for
elocution, with a view to “advancing the objects which his uncle
had in view in establishing the Professorship.’

So far, we have been confining our attention entirely to the first
college. But all evidence points to the fact that the other colleges
of the coloniai period followed Harvard’s example in this point
in the curriculum as well as in others. In the curriculum of the
University of Virginia,’ established by Thomas Jefferson in 1819,
as the first radical departure from the general fixed scheme of
college work we find as the tenth division of his course of study the
term “ideology,” and under this, rhetoric and _belles-lettres.
Evidently oratory similar to the work at Harvard was included
here.

The oratorical instinct which was so strong in all the colleges
at the time of the Revolution gave birth to another great influence
in the development of public speaking—the literary society. The
“Speaking Club” at Harvard was organized in 1771, and was
among the first of these organizations. Among its members were
John Quincy Adams, Rufus King, and many other great orators
of a later period. Other clubs of this type rapidly followed. The
debates in these organizations were not all academic—some were
very practical. One debate was on the question of “The Pernicious
Habit of Drinking Tea.” This would indicate that public con-
cerns were invading the college yard. Strong societies for debate
were established in all the colleges during the last decades of the
eighteenth and the first decades of the nineteenth centuries. The

* John Quincy Adams, Lectures on Rhetoric and Oratory.
* Josiah Quincy, History of Harvard University, p. 130.
3 See. H. B. Adams, Thomas Jefferson and the University of Virginia.

36 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

interest in these societies was intense. A graduate of Amherst
writes:

Each student at that time [from 1827 to 1831] became earnestly enlisted
as champion for the preeminence of his own society. The literary society
was the chief center of interest outside the regular interests of the college.
Each had its own esprit de corps very distinct and well understood. We
eagerly anticipated the weekly meetings of the Athenian Society, and prepared
ourselves for its exercises with diligence. Nearly all the members attended
regularly, filling up a recitation room of the Chapel. Debates, Orations, and
Poems, constituted our principal exercises which were always performed with
life and vigor."

President Thwing gives five causes of the dissolution of this
valuable form of college activity, which came for many of the
societies as early as the fifth decade of the last century:

(1) The increasing refinement of the community, both general and aca-
demic, which lessened attention to the more strenuous forms of public speech,
for academic public speaking in the early days was usually and naturally
rather strenuous. (2) The college authorities so recognized the importance
of good English that they felt obliged to take full responsibility for its devel-
opment. (3) The students began to express their opinions through the medium
of the college paper. (4) The increasing sense of camaraderie among the
students led to the establishment of the fraternity system, and students’
interests were transferred from the society to the fraternity. (5) The college
began to take upon itself more complete training for men in practical public
speaking.?

It is true that there are still literary societies to be found, but
these are mainly in colleges where fraternities are forbidden, and
they are largely social in their character. They have very little
influence in the cultivation of public-speaking ability.

We may now turn our attention to the beginnings of public-
speaking instruction in the secondary schools. I have been unable
to find any mention of any oratorical or declamation work in the
colonial grammar schools. But in the period immediately after
the Revolution the great interest in oratory seems to have found
an expression in the academies that were being founded at that
time, especially in those first ones established by Franklin at
Philadelphia and by the Phillipses at Exeter and Andover.

1G. R. Cutter, Student Life at Amherst, p. 21.
* Thwing, History of Higher Education in America, p. 375.

PUBLIC SPEAKING IN EARLY COLLEGES 37

There was great interest in the practice of declamation. We see the ora-
torical spirit of the time in the text books used during this period. Noah
Webster’s American Selection or Third Part (1785) was crowded with examples
of American eloquence. Caleb Bingham’s Columbian Orator (1797) was
another text of the same type."

In the curriculum of Phillips Exeter for 1818 we find listed in
the classical department for the second of the three years, English
grammar and declamation. For both the second and third years
in the English department we find “declamation and exercises of
the forensic kind.” In a letter from a student in the Academy at
Andover in 1814 we learn the following: “Wednesday afternoons
in every week are devoted to declamation. From this pleasing
exercise no scholar is excepted.’”

There were strong debating and rhetorical societies in the
academies as well as in the colleges. As early as 1818 we hear of
the “Philomathean Society” at Andover and the “Rhetorical
Society” at Exeter.

The public high schools took over much of the curriculum of
the academies, public-speaking work included. In the course of
study adopted for the Boston English High School, established in
1821 as the first public high school in the country, we find that
declamation is among the studies required for each of the three
classes. In the first report of the High School for Boys in New
York City we find this statement:

Some pursuits are nevertheless common to all. All the scholars attend
to Spelling, Arithmetic, Writing, Geography, Elocution, Composition, Draw-
ing, Natural History, Philosophy, and Bookkeeping. Philosophy and History
are taught chiefly by lectures and questions, and these branches, together
with Elocution and Composition, are severally attended to one day in each
week.3

The Boston Latin School, the direct descendent of the colonial

grammar school, evidently had to follow the example of her sister
school, the English high school, and introduce public speaking

1 E. E. Brown, Making of Our Middle Schools, p. 235.
2 From a letter of William Person, written June 18, 1814.
3 First Annual Report of the New York High School Society, pp. 6-7.

38 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

into the curriculum. For in writing of his studies at the Latin
School from 1844 to 1849, Dr. Charles W. Eliot says:

During the first three years in the Boston Latin School I was quite unable
to take pleasure in any of the studies there pursued, with the possible excep-
tion of declamation, in which I excelled Near the end of my third
year, when I was thirteen years old, I won against several older competitors
the first prize for declamation at the great Exhibition Day of the school, using
a selection from a fiery speech by Daniel O’Connell in the House of Commons.
I still remember a good deal of that selection. It must have been amusing
and possibly pathetic to see a little American boy announcing to an audience
of a thousand people or more, “I do not rise to fawn or cringe to this house.
I do not rise to supplicate you to be merciful to the people to whom I belong.’

In conclusion I may add that I have made no attempt to carry
this study beyond the middle of the last century. During the
last half of the century many systems and schools of elocution
sprang up and have had their influence on the courses given in the
colleges. But the courses of study and the curriculum had very
little change. If anything, the emphasis put on public speaking
in the early days was gradually being transferred to an appre-
ciation of written forms of expression. But during the last few

years there has been a remarkable revival of interest in public-
speaking courses in the colleges and schools. And it may be of
interest to some of us to note that many of the things that we have
considered new had their place in the colleges back at the time
of the Revolution and even before.

* Educational Review, XLII, 349-50.

THE RELATION OF THE SPEAKER TO HIS AUDIENCE’

H. B. GISLASON
University of Minnesota

T IS plain that in considering the subject of a speaker’s relation
to his audience one has to have regard for both parties to the
relationship. There is the speaker and his point of view; and
there is the audience and its point of view. From the speaker’s
viewpoint, the question is largely one of expediency. By what
attitude toward an audience can a speaker get the best results?
How can he best attain his purpose? From the point of view of
the audience, it is a question of rights. What claims have the
audience upon a speaker? What have they a right to demand of
him? An audience has frequently to exercise patience and long-
suffering, and I think you will admit that the hearer’s end of the
bargain is not to be altogether overlooked.

But while these are seemingly divergent points of view, for-
tunately they come close to merging into one another. A speaker
cannot with impunity disregard matters of common fairness to his
audience. If he does so, it is with prejudice to his own interests.
A long-winded pedant, for example, who continues to speak after
he has ceased to say anything, simply goes on to undo whatever
of good he may have accomplished, and in the long run the interests
of audience and speaker are probably identical.

I shall take the liberty of dealing somewhat broadly with the
subject, and shall take it up primarily from the point of view of
persuasive speaking. It is clear that when a person merely
expounds truth—explains, for example, wireless telegraphy or
the fourth dimension—his attitude toward his audience is relatively
a simple matter. If he makes himself understood, his purpose is
accomplished, and that is all he needs to look after. When,
however, a speaker begins to ask people to change their views, to

* Read at the convention of the National Speech Arts Association, San Francisco,
June, 1915.

39

jetta 3

40° THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

discard prejudices, to set aside cherished opinions; when he begins
to appeal to motives and feelings, to move men to action—in short,
to make demands upon his hearers—then it is that a speaker’s
attitude toward his audience takes on new significance and becomes
one of the few big factors in effective persuasion.

How, then, may a speaker be guided into the right relationship
to his audience? Well, about the first thing he has to do is to
realize vividly that his business is with the minds of his hearers,
and that his only legitimate object in speaking is to impress those
minds with whatever truth he has to present. He must under-
stand that only so far as his ideas carry, that is to say, find lodgment
in the minds of his listeners, is he accomplishing anything; that
speaking efficiency is not measured by the noise he makes or the
number of words he can utter in a minute—it is measured by the
number of vital ideas for which he can find acceptance, which he
can make stick in the minds of his hearers.

Now this we may properly call “taking aim” in speaking.
But taking aim is a very difficult thing to do; and it is made difficult
by the diversity in the mental make-up of the audience. What
a heterogeneous mass is the average audience of, say, five hundred
people! What a variety of opinions, prejudices, interests, mental
capacities! There are prejudices of race, religion, politics, sex,
class, country, state, community, social groups, and many others.
In point of intelligence, some are well informed, others ignorant;
some alert, others slow and dull; some eager for instruction and
ennobling influences, others almost proof against both. ‘There
are several audiences in every public assembly.” Moreover, on
all disputed questions opinions are divided. Some are with the
speaker, others against him, and stil! others indifferent or in doubt.
It is plain that if the speaker is there for serious business and not
merely for exhibition he must address himself, primarily, not to
those who agree with him, or even to those who are in doubt,
but to those who differ from him and are hostile to his views. It
is only the last class that is the big game, and it is the big game that
the wise hunter wishes to bag.

But all this you say is well known. So it is; but how seldom
realised in practice. Whoever has taught a class in speaking, or

RELATION OF THE SPEAKER TO HIS AUDIENCE 41

has even heard public speakers, must have been impressed with the
vageness and aimlessness of much of what was said; and you know
the old adage—when a man aims at nothing, he is almost sure to
hit it. Beecher said to the divinity students at Yale that too many
speeches were like Chinese firecrackers, just fired off for the noise
they make. Much of our debating smacks of intellectual juggling,
one reason being that what is said is not even seriously intended to
produce any definite impression on any human mind. There is
no identification of interest between speaker and hearer. What
seems to concern the speaker the least is the probable effect of
what he is saying on the minds of his audience. How seldom the
amateur speaker stops to ask himself, Are my hearers following
me? Do they really get a hold on what I am saying? Are they
coming to think and feel as I do about this question? To me,
one of the most hopeful signs of progress is to be seen in a speaker
when he stops in the middle of a speech or argument and says: “I
don’t believe you got that; I don’t think I made that very clear.
Let me go over it again or say it in another way.” When a reaction
like that sets in, there is hope. When a speaker can sense whether
or not an audience is with him, he has made a great gain. It
shows that he is grappling with human minds, and that he has the
right mental attitude toward his hearers.

You know it is a very prevelant custom in our intercollegiate
debates for the contestants to address themselves to the “ honorable
judges” and to direct their arguments to those worthy gentlemen.
A prominent high-school educator once said to me that he thought
it was the aim of the debaters to convince the judges. I should
say that that is altogether a wrong attitude. Instead of addressing
themselves wholly to the judges, they ought not to address them-
selves to them at all. Strictly speaking, debaters have no more
to do with the judges than a football team with a referee. The
judges are in the audience, to be sure, but not really a part of it.
They are there, as it were, watching the performance. For debaters
to frame their arguments for the judges instead of for their real
audience shows how inaccurate may be the aim of young speakers
even when they are supposed to have had competent guidance.
And incidentally it may be said that judges who do not consider

MS LOE SANE EOP Sine ba 28 A

42 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

the adaptation of argument to the audience have something yet
to learn of the art of judging a debate.

Now, growing out of this very significant fact that a speaker
must take careful aim if he wishes to bring truth home to his hearers
is a corollary, namely, that he must understand the workings of
the minds that he is seeking toimpress. And one of the first things
he must learn to understand is the limitations of the mind in the
matter of following a speech. This limitation is more or less strik-
ing with all audiences, and is especially so with the average popular
audience. Hear what an experienced lecturer (Oliver Wendell
Holmes) has to say on this: ‘The average intellect of five hundred
persons, taken as they come, is not very high. It may be sound and
safe, so far as it goes, but it is not very rapid or profound. A
lecture ought to be something which all can understand. A thor-
oughly popular lecture ought to have nothing in it which five hun-
dred people cannot all take in at a flash just as it is uttered.” A
study of the great speakers reveals a wonderful simplicity in style.
Especially is that true of the orators of the last fifty or seventy-
five years, the period during which popular oratory spread through
the lyceum and the chatauqua as it has never spread before. There
is a charm of simplicity in the addresses of such men as Beecher,
Ingersoll, Lincoln, Henry Drummond, Wendell Phillips. Their
sentences are short and crisp and simple in structure, while, by
actual count, one may discover that for every one hundred words
they use, from ninety-two to ninety-five are words of one and two
syllables. Not the least element of attractiveness and popularity
in Bryan’s speaking is the simplicity of diction and outline into
which he throws all his speeches. These men understand their
audiences, and their genius impels them to present truth in such
simple form that the simplest of their hearers can grasp it. They
do this, not with a contemptuous air of condescension, but with a
spirit of fine appreciation of the demands of their art. It was a
habit of Webster’s to scatter Latin phrases through his speeches;
but he repented, and on one occasion at least expressed the solemn
wish that every Latin phrase were out of his speeches. I should
say it is a matter of plain fairness to an audience, as well as of good
art, that truth be presented simply, clearly, and intelligibly.

RELATION OF THE SPEAKER TO HIS AUDIENCE 43

I would go farther and say that proper regard both for the
audience and for the art of speaking demands that truth be pre-
sented, not only simply and clearly, but also attractively. Now,
that is asking a great deal of a speaker, a very great deal, but is
it asking too much? I think not. Even if the demand were
unreasonable, we may be sure that it is constantly and universally
made. The reason that people flocked to hear Wendell Phillips
and Ingersoll, and now flock to hear Bryan, is that they believe
they will enjoy it. If they receive instruction and inspiration in
the bargain, well and good. But enjoyment they insist on.
Failure to reckon with this demand proves disastrous to many
lecturers. It is a well-known fact that when you mention a
lecture to the ordinary citizen his face will lengthen, a shadow
will fall over it, and he will tell you probably that he will have
none of it. Now what he really does not care about is not a
lecture, but a poor lecturer. It is the average sort that he does
not care about; and I would not judge him too severely for that.
A good lecturer has always been one of the biggest drawing-cards
on the boards.

Not long ago I had occasion to listen to a professional lecturer
who lectures under the auspices of some of the leading universities
of the country. The subject announced was attractive, and I was
expecting a treat. The lecture, however, was a disappointment.
The lecturer spoke for an hour and a quarter, during which there
was not one striking illustration, not one stroke of humor, not a
touch of what could properly be called originality, not a single
climax either in thought or in presentation. The materials of the
speech were commonplace; the uses made of them were common-
place; the form in which they were presented was commonplace,
and the manner of presenting them was commonplace. The
lecture was a dead level of monotony in thought, feeling, style, and
presentation. The most remarkable thing about the performance
was the patience af the audience.

In marked contrast with this was an hour’s discussion of the
question of national defense given before the same audience earlier
in the week by two university students. Members of the audience
were not slow in expressing their appreciation. The difference

4
*> ae Ga

hae tes “
oe

:. ee
ee 4
Sas

coor a cam

f
vt
<i
Al
~

ert Ke.
~

NET) cae

Fe er

Ce en ee
ag <

>

i y <= - oa or -
Ry SR po ee, 6 TES 5 ck ar ear

?

Pi
3
9

oh
Gh dg
ot 8S

44 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

was that the students had some understanding of making a speech
interesting; the lecturer evidently did not have any.

It is a lamentable fact that many men who go before the public
do not appreciate the necessity of making truth palatable to an
audience. A public speaker should have “power of statement.”
A speech without style, humor, originality, illustrations, and other
well-known devices does not give an audience a square deal.
Emerson uttered a great truth when he said, “‘ Eloquence must be
attractive or itis none. The virtue of a book is that it is readable,
and of an orator that he is interesting.”

If a speaker wishes to come into the right relation to his audi-
ence, let him come to understand carefully the workings of the
human mind and the manner in which men are guided in their
views and actions. Pope’s maxim, “The proper study for mankind
is man,” applies to no class of men more than the public speaker.
You know we have radically changed our opinions about the mental
life during the last twenty-five years. Man is no longer what we
thought him to be. We supposed that he was a reasoning being
who fashioned his conduct by carefully balancing the reasons for
and against any line of action. We no longer believe that. We
know now that most of our conduct is determined by mental pro-
cesses that do not rise to the level of reasoning at ail. If someone
were to ask us why we belong to a certain political party, or why
we attend a certain church, or why we go to a certain college instead
of to some other, or why we wear clothes of a certain cut, or shves
of a certain style, we could not give any valid reasons. We should
have to admit that we belong to a certain political party because
our father did; we belong to a certain church because we were
brought up in it; go to a certain college because our friends do;
and wear the kinds of clothes we do because it is the fashion. The
man hardly lives who has reasoned himself into a particular reli-
gious denomination; and they are few who have reasoned themselves
into a political party. Imitation, habit, suggestion—these are the
guiding processes. Our lives are ordered largely through social
contact with our fellows. We catch opinions in much the same
way as we do the smallpox or measles. Man is not a reasoning
being, but a suggestible one.

RELATION OF THE SPEAKER TO HIS AUDIENCE 45

The speaker who would come into a vital relation to his audience
must understand these things. He must understand that the high-
way to the heart does not lie, even largely, through logic. He
must come to understand that making himself agreeable to an
audience may be much more important than the most subtle
reasoning; that a smile is the most contagious thing in the world.
An attitude of sympathy, modesty, geniality, good-fellowship, are
indispensable to winning audiences. The best drummer is not the
man who can talk up his wares most logically, but the man who
can make most friends among his customers. The man who can
sell the most insurance is not the man who can put up the best
argument; he is generally the man who proves himself the best
fellow. Many striking examples could be given if space permitted
and some will doubtless occur to everybody.

Abraham Lincoln has said many good things, and he has said
some good things on this subject. I quote him:

When the conduct of men is designed to be influenced, persuasion, kind,
unassuming persuasion, should ever be adopted. It is an old and true maxim
that a drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall. So with men.
If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere
friend. There is the drop of honey that catches his heart, which, say what he
will, when once gained, you will find but little trouble in convincing his judg-
ment of the justice of your cause, if indeed that cause really be a just one.
On the contrary, assume to dictate to his judgment, or to command his action,
or to mark him as one to be shunned and despised, and he will retreat within
himself, close all the avenues to his head and heart; and though your cause
be naked truth itself, and though you throw it with more than Herculean force
and precision, you will be no more able to pierce him than to penetrate the
hard shell of a tortoise with a rye straw. Such is man, and so must he be
understood by those who would lead him even to his own best interests.

so pn MN Ri EE rp

THE RELATION OF THE SPEAKER TO HIS LITERATURE'

DWIGHT E. WATKINS
Knox College

ITERARY interpretation is a most intricate process. The
factors of success in it are almost multitudinous. Moreover,
they are bound up so closely one with the other that it is almost
impossible to speak of any one singly. It is almost beyond the
power of mental analysis to say: “Here is one phase of the process,
let us study it.” For one has no more entered upon its study than
he finds that what he has before him is utterly beyond understand-
ing unless he knows something of the other phases.
In this treatment of the reader in relation to his literature, then,
I must ask pardon if I trespass somewhat upon the other topics
of the day. I shall try to keep within a fairly well-defined zone.
In literary interpretation, first of all, there should be certain
broad co-ordinations, such as those of knowledge, culture, and
temperament. No person should attempt to interpret literature
that he does not understand. There must be a certain knowledge
of the meanings of words, and an expertness in drawing simple
meanings from involved rhetorical constructions. The reader
must have a careful grammatical and rhetorical education. The
medium of expression must not in any way hinder the reader
from penetrating beyond it to the facts that lie behind. Beyond
the mere words, too, there should be a knowledge of the facts for
which they stand. A reference to the Malthusian theory in
economics or the Ptolemaic theory in astronomy needs more than
a bare understanding of the words. All humor dies out of a jovial
reference to old Methuselah unless you know how old he lived to be,
and how many children he had. So, at first, there should be an
equation between the knowledge stock, so to speak, of the reader
and the demands put upon it by his literature.
* Read at the Convention of the National Speech Arts Association, San Francisco,

June, 1915.
46

RELATION OF THE SPEAKER TO HIS LITERATURE 47

Next, and a step higher than the knowledge co-ordination, one
might mention a certain co-ordination of temperament. Certain
light, airy forms of literature, I think we may as well admit, are
beyond a slow, phlegmatic temperament. A cart horse can never
be trained to trot a mile in two minutes, and no more can one who
has inherited from a long line of ancestry a certain tardiness of
nervous reaction be expected to keep up with the literature that
is the product of a brain that has evolved from generations of
mental expertness. Humor and stolidity must always seek their
own interpreters, and they will always be, at the best, the humorous
and stolid. Each reader will sooner or later find the type of litera-
ture that best suits his personality, and he will do well to confine him-
self tothistype. For teachers of expression the keen realization of
this limitation has a distinct value. Many a teacher’s reputation
has been enhanced, not by skill in technique, if you please, but by a
certain intuitive consciousness of the suitability of a certain nature
to certain forms of literature.

The broadest co-ordination, doubtless, might be called the
culture co-ordination. The success of a reader very largely depends
upon his culture—upon the richness of his personality. How to
build up this culture is the great problem of the interpreter of
literature. Imagination, of course, has always been spoken of as
the great sine qua non of artistic endeavor. But too often we put
too narrow a definition upon this word. Imagination means more
than the mere forming of visual images, as the etymology of the word
seems to indicate. There is a larger imagination which brings into
play the whole physiological being. Moreover, too much of our
imaginings are of a pale, sickly sort. They are confined to the
cerebral centers only, and do not ramify and spread throughout
the system. There is too little systematic reverberation, as one
might say. We pay too little attention to the changes in our physi-
ology that take place outside the brain. Indeed, these are the very
essence of expressive work, for unless our minds work through the
matter in which they are encased we are void of results with our
fellow-men. To interpret the sight of the Grand Canyon one must
feel his own deep breathing and hear the subdued tones of those
who contemplate its depth. One must feel the spinal shiver as

48 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

he looks out upon the magnificent panorama spread at the foot of
Mt. Manitou in Colorado, or the wide opening of the eyes and the
gentle changing of facial expression as he sees the beauties of the
first pink geranium hedge in California. Vocal quality, that talis-
man of all literary interpretation, is largely determined by these
changes, for resonance changes with the bodily texture. But not
all the effects of a brilliant and thorough imagination are to be
found in vocal quality. The slight pausings, the muscular reac-
tions, all have a tangible effect upon the audience. The lifting of
the wings of the nose upon the presence of fragrance, their narrow-
ing upon the detection of a displeasing oder, all these, be they ever
so small, are detected by the instincts of the listener. So there
must be a broader imagination in the reader, a cultivation of the
whole physiological being. The body must be trained to be as
sensitive as an electric needle. There must be for every mental
idea an induced current of emotion.

In addition to this culture, or I might better say, along with it,
there must come an external enriching of experience. The pro-
vincial can never have the general interpretative power of the
cosmopolitan. The storehouses of experience must be enriched.
We must widen our experience with nature and with men. I was
interested recently by the account of one of the professors of
English in the University of California who had recently taken a
trip through the northern redwoods—interested in the valuation he
put upon the trip for his appreciation of the word “forests” in
literature. So the Alps or the Canadian Rockies must be of value
in our appreciation of mountains. We must cultivate a treasure-
house of beautiful sensations and pleasing responses if we wish to
be well equipped for interpretative work. Take that beautiful
sonnet to the “‘California Poppy,” the Copa de Oro (‘the cup of
gold’’), by Ina Donna Coolbrith:

Thy satin vesture richer is than looms

Of Orient weave for raiment of her kings!
Not dyes of olden Tyre, not precious things
Regathered from the long-forgotten tombs
Of buried empires, not the iris plumes
That wave upon the tropics’ myriad wings,

RELATION OF THE SPEAKER TO HIS LITERATURE 49

Not all proud Sheba’s queenly offerings,
Could match the golden marvel of thy blooms.
For thou art nurtured from the treasure veins
Of this fair land; thy golden rootlets sup

Her sands of gold—of gold thy petals spun.
Her golden glory thou, on hills and plains
Lifting, exultant, every kingly cup

Brimmed with the golden vintage of the sun.

What demands those first few lines make upon experience! How
one must appreciate the soft, rich luster of satin; how he
must feel its texture through all his being! How that word
“‘vesture”’ must carry with it its peculiar connotation—the peculiar
feature that would not be present in the words “vestments” or
“‘clothing’’! How one must draw upon his memory of all oriental
pictures and the oriental drama to depict the raiment of the Orient
kings! How the Tyrian purple, the scarlet cloak of the Roman
imperator, must cause his retina to shrink for its very brilliance!
How these things must draw upon one’s cultural resources!

But even all this will not suffice for the perfect interpretation.
There must be a deeper meaning sought—a truer imaginative

significance found in every situation. There must be a peculiar
synthesis of all the elements mentioned or involved. The situation
must be felt in its entirety. ‘‘It is where the bird is that makes the
bird,”’ says William Hunt. And how the latter lines of this same
sonnet on the California “‘Poppy”’ bring out the fact!

For thou art nurtured from the treasure veins
Of this fair land; thy golden rootlets sup

Her sands of gold—of gold thy petals spun.
Her golden glory thou, on hills and plains
Lifting, exultant, every kingly cup

Brimmed with the golden vintage of the sun.

Here the fitness of the yellow flower amid the treasures un-
covered in ’49 must strike home. Here the yellow flower and the
yellow metal must be blended in imagination. Here the prophesy
of the flower—its manifestation of the state’s resources—must be
felt. Here the gold of the sunshine must reign over hill and plain.
Here the vineyards must contribute their share to the abounding

SE ei ee Be? +

5° THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

products of the state’s fertility. Here even the Golden Gate and
the setting of the Pacific sun must fill out the conception. Here
there must be not only depth, but expanse, in the round of our
experience. Here must be the power to synthesize many and
diverse resources into one rich and variegated whole.

How shall such power of synthetic appreciation be brought
about? For certainly it can never be brought about by effort—as
we commonly understand that word. We can never appreciate
poetry by striving. We must have leisure. To appreciate poetry
one must not gird up his loins, but put on his slippers and lounging
robe. The body and mind must make themselves plastic and ready
to receive. Moreover, there must not be too much attention to
details. There must be a broad field of vision and sensation. The
situation must flood in upon the soul in its entirety. The person-
ality must push back its boundaries and wait upon a limitless plain
and under an eternal sky for whatever message may come.

Perhaps it may seem that all this insistence upon appreciation
by the reader is beside the point—when the real goal of his efforts
is creating an effect upon an audience. But there is a certain
“reciprocality,” between all human beings. Reactions in one of
us are caught by organs of sense in our fellows and set up corre-
sponding reactions. Certain tones of voice will set the tears astir
almost without fail. Certain quips of inflection will start the
smiles likewise. And these are almost too subtle for voluntary
reproduction. Nature demands that they be sincere in order to
pass current. Counterfeit on the platform is as easily detected
as counterfeit in the mart.

But one other necessity presents itself in building up the rapport
of the reader with his literature, and that is the necessity that the
reader be in a position to reproduce the fullest appreciation when he
appears before his audience. Half the ridicule that of old time was
heaped upon elocution was, I believe, due to some such cause. To
rise at once to a height of imaginative conception worthy of the
opening lines of many a poem is practically impossible. The mind
must gradually work away from the platform, an auditorium, an
audience, to the fields depicted in the literature. I presume that
is why musicians sometimes give slight verbal introductions to their

RELATION OF THE SPEAKER TO HIS LITERATURE 51

renditions. Such introductions help to build back to the mood of
the compositions. Of course these help the audience, too, and
their greatest value may lie in that direction, but they are of great
help to the reader also.

Briefly, then, there should be a knowledge co-ordination between
the reader and his literature. He should be capable of understand-
ing the language and the facts before him. There should be a
temperament co-ordination. Every reader should select the
literature that best suits his personality. There should be a culture
co-ordination. Richer, deeper, responses should be sought. The
external experiences of life should be enriched. There should be
no striving, but a calm and receptive mood. And on the platform
care should be exercised that the mind is in full accord with the
mood of the literature to be read.

THE PROFESSIONAL OUTLOOK’

J. M. O'NEILL
University of Wisconsin

N OPENING this first annual convention of the National

Association of the Academic Teachers of Public Speaking, I
purpose to submit for your consideration certain aspects of the
present professional outlook as I see it. I believe that we stand
today at a very important point, and that the professional outlook
is in many respects a new one—is brighter and better than it has
ever been in the past. Before we go on to the consideration of
more particular questions, many of which involve a decision as to
whether the power and influence of this Association shall be used
in one direction or the other, let us consider our position and our
strength. Let us get our bearings and take a glance at some of
the larger problems that are before us.

The point of view is of great importance in any outlook. Where
do we stand? We stand on the first position ever gained by the
united teachers of our field. Never before has there been gathered
in conference on the affairs of our profession a body of teachers,
and teachers only, representing such a complete distribution
geographically and in grades of institutions. Our members are
distributed over thirty-three states, extending literally from Maine
to California, from Oregon and Washington to North Carolina
and Virginia, from the Dakotas to Louisiana. Our members are
the teachers in institutions of every grade—the universities, col-
leges, normal schools, public high schools, and private preparatory
schools. In the institutions of college and university grade we
have practically all the teachers there are, and when satisfactory
methods of reaching the others are devised we expect to have all of
the teachers in the schools.

So for the first time we stand united; we have reached the first
position necessary for proper professional advance. Our point of

* President’s address, First Annual Convention, Chicago, November, 1915.

52

THE PROFESSIONAL OUTLOOK 53

view, then, is that of professional solidarity, united for the advance-
ment of whatsoever things are right. Do not misunderstand me to
mean that we are all agreed on what is right. No such calamity is
possible. I feel confident that we shall be spared the blight of
unanimity of opinion for some time to come. But I am also confi-
dent that we have here a unanimity of loyalty to the profession as a
profession—an esprit de corps embodied, and made potent therefore
on a national scope, for the first time in history. Such is the point
at which we stand.

Now, let us take in the view. What do we see? Toward
what have we set our faces? Along what road lies our progress?
There is only one way to look, only one direction in which to move,
only one trail along which we as a profession must look for “endur-
ing satisfactions.” The field before us is a field of academic
endeavor. The rewards we must strive for are the rewards that
come from academic success. Non-academic and extra-curricular
triumphs and victories must not be the most prized distinctions.

‘The platform and the stage must give way to the study and the
classroom as the scenes of our best and most important work and
our richest and most enduring rewards. )

It is toward educational achievement that we must set our
faces. It was to educational achievement that this Association
dedicated itself by the very resolution that brought it into being as
a formal organization. It was formed (‘for the purpose of pro-
moting research and more effective teaching.) It was in order
to advance these purposes that teachers the country over have
joined our ranks. It is the success of the scholar and the teacher
that we must honor. It is in one or the other of these proper lines
of educational activity that we must do our work. So it is a
scholars’ and teachers’ road that we see before us. It is the road
we are already on, and there can now be no turning back. And
along this road we find the professional opportunities and responsi-
bilities of teachers—opportunities and responsibilities similar in
many ways, to be sure, to those met by all real teachers in every
field of education. But there are some aspects of these opportuni-
ties that are peculiarly significant to us.

May I mention three general opportunities which the profes-
sional outlook holds for us today as it has never held them before ?

54 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

The first is a basic one out of which the other two grow. First, we
are as a profession today free to control our own professional j
existence. We have freedom and power to work in our own way.
Individuals have had this in the past, but the profession never.
This Association and its Quarterly Journal make possible for the
first time the expression and circulation of real professional opinion,
backed by a sufficient number, sufficiently distributed, to have
the force of the authentic expression of teachers in this field. And
this means that we have for the first time an opportunity to educate
and develop a professional opinion. This is professional freedom.
Professional freedom means an intensification of interest and study
in this field. It means that specialization which alone can make
deep and adequate searches for the truth. There is evident
already an awakening that means better scholarship, more scien-
tific research, better teaching in this field. It means the passing
fa of the day of guesses and thumb-rules. All this is coming because
the opportunity for its encouragement and expression exists now
as it has never existed before.

In rejoicing in this new freedom and power which we now have
as an organized profession, and which we as individuals now have
as a rule in our department work, I trust there is no trace of antago-
+ nism to, bitterness toward, or disrespect for, our foster-mother, the
i sl English department. It is true that in some institutions the child
$i and its foster-parent have contended with each other in the past

with varying results. In some the child has been spanked and
ae locked up in a dark closet for daring to presume to grow up. We
it should in common decency organize rescue parties to liberate such
¥ prisoners. But fortunately, in most places no such educational
pei catastrophe has occurred. The necessary and natural freedom of
ree the offspring has resulted in a separation accompanied by the cordial
Ben mutual respect and help usually found between parent and child
| after the latter has come to man’s estate and established himself on
fie his own responsibility. If in some places the two have decided
4 re to occupy the same house, well and good. Let us not quarrel
' over details of domestic economy. That the child shall be allowed
f to grow up to the opportunities of maturity and freedom is the
i! only essential thing.

ey aes

THE PROFESSIONAL OUTLOOK 55

Of course, I do not mean by this freedom which I have men-
tioned anything akin to license. We have, of course, the checks
and limitations of other teachers in other departments. We must
necessarily and properly be held to what the academic world con-
siders worthy and reputable, and we are subject to the restraining
power of budgets and administrators. But in the same way that
other groups of teachers and other professions are free to carry
on their own affairs we now as a profession are free and are ready
to take care of our affairs. And of course I do not mean that this
freedom is dependent upon, or must be made use of in, an offensive
and defensive warfare with English departments. In regard to the
“powers without ourselves which work for good,” we ought to give
particular sympathy and support to our colleagues working in
English departments. From the very nature of the case the
work of the two departments must be interrelated and sympa-
thetically. adjusted at many points. This is evident from work
now being done in classrooms by some English teachers, from the
activities of organizations of English teachers, and from the activity
planned by the newly organized Committee on American Speech, of
the National Council of Teachers of English. All this is as it should
be, and I feel confident that this association and the members of it
are ready to work with English teachers and English teachers’
organizations for the common good of education. I feel, however,
that there is one frank warning which needs to be given at this
time. Some of you probably already realize the danger; others do
not. It is this: As the result of the experience which I have had in
connection with my own work, and more especially with the
affairs of this Association since a year ago, I have been forced to
the conclusion that there is one type of English teacher who is a
distinct menace to the discovery and dissemination of scientific
truths in this field, and to the proper methods of administering, in
classroom and clinic, to the needs of the young people in the schools
of this country. I say, there is one type of English teacher who at
present distinctly menaces progress in these lines, and, strange to
say, it is not that English teacher who ignorantly opposes serious
oral work in any form, who is cocksure that there is nothing worth
while in public speaking. It is not this hostile and undiscriminating

gia

56 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

critic of public speaking and public-speaking teachers, who is still to
be found in some backward English departments. Fortunately, f
this type has largely died out or been subdued by the more intelli-

gent members of his profession. And, of course, the dangerous

type is not found among those English teachers, who are very rare,

unfortunately (but specimens have been discovered), who have a
whole-hearted respect and enthusiasm for thorough scholarship iP
and instruction in our field, and who, at the same time, know enough
about this work to be able to distinguish the good from the bad,
to be able to be helpful rather than harmful in their teaching
wherever their teaching touches a speaking problem. The type of
English teacher toward whom we must individually and collectively
be on our guard is found among those teachers who profess a deep
interest in public speaking in all its phases, who perhaps say that
it is the coming thing, a great discovery, a wonderful labor-saving
device. Their technical training is so woefully deficient that they
have an entirely erroneous conception of what constitutes thorough
or even intelligent instruction in any of the phases of public speak-
ing, and they are likely to do as much harm as good when they
a attempt to give any instruction or advice in this field. This type
ik of instructor usually has a few very definite and very forceful
; principles which constitute his working knowledge and professional
ii code. Such statements as “Open your mouth,” “Throw back
4 your shoulders,” ‘‘Stand on two feet.” “Have something to say,”
; “Never use notes,” “Don’t shout,” “Be clear,” “Talk out loud,”
he “Don’t make gestures,” and similar puerile, if not erroneous,
Ba’ banalities, constitute their stock in trade. Now let us ignore those
Pe; of the first type that I have mentioned, for that will make them
Te most unhappy and least effective. Let us cordially encourage and
support the second type, for that will help to make the truth
4 prevail. And let us, always and everywhere, individually and as
i a body, oppose, expose, and depose those of the third type who
i persist in their sins. Let us educate wherever possible, and where
this is not possible, annihilate this third type, whose ignorance,
working often under the garb of sympathetic co-operation, does
more harm in a week than the well-informed English teachers are
able to counteract in a month. It is here, precisely as in most

THE PROFESSIONAL OUTLOOK 57

other fields of human endeavor, that the well-meaning incompetent
is the greatest drag on the wheels of progress and the greatest aid
and ally of the enemies of progress.

So much for our general opportunities of freedom and power and
for our relations with those most closely associated with us in the
past and present. Now I wish to consider two great groups of
opportunities and responsibilities arising out of the possession of
this freedom and power. It is of course true here as elsewhere that
opportunity connotes responsibility. The two go together; and
I wish to consider them together in regard to two general phases
of our present professional outlook: first, in regard to the conditions
that are to obtain in the immediate future—the period of activity
of the present generation; and, secondly, in regard to the training
of those who are to succeed us.

The first one of these duty-laden opportunities which seem to
be knocking loudly at our professional door today is the opportunity
to establish afresh and anew the codes, conventions, and standards
under which we today shall do our work. The statement is made
continually that we lack standards, that we lack standardized
truths, that we lack common knowledge and codes and conventions.
There have been long in this profession individuals and departments
having admirable codes, conventions, standards, and ideals, but the
profession, as a profession, cannot be said to have had anything of
the sort; so that we have now the opportunity to organize and
formulate the ethical and professional codes and standards which
should obtain throughout the entire profession.

Today we cs a profession must take upon our shoulders the
responsibility for the things that happen in this field. Since we are
organized, since we have the means of educating, ascertaining, and
expressing the professional opinion of the country, we may as
individuals no longer entirely escape all responsibility for what
takes place outside our own departments. We are now comparable
to citizens of an organized state, no longer merely the irresponsible
explorers or exploiters in an unorganized and lawless frontier.
From now on, in this sense, it is my business and it is your business
what takes place even in institutions far removed from us. Bad
practices indulged in in one section reflect upon the profession as a

eee eee

58 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

whole all over the country, and so we as a profession have the
responsibility now of saying whether the purposes of the workers in
this field shall be education or exploitation; whether the objects we
shall set before us shall be scientific training for all who need it or
artistic exhibition for the few who don’t; whether we are to be
educators of unpromising students who may be benefited by proper
treatment or whether we shall be trainers of prize specimens who
perhaps would be most helped by being kept out of the public eye.

A very particular and definite responsibility in this group is the
professional responsibility for the standards of grading and rating
pupils, teachers, and departments. Is rating to be done on some-
thing similar to batting averages in public contests or on the meet-
ing of educational standards applied here as they would be applied
in any other department of education? What can the profession
do in regard to this, do youask? Is not this something which must
be left in the hands of each individual? Decidedly “no”! The
profession can do much. I think it may be well at the meeting
on Saturday afternoon to consider the advisibility of appointing
a committee to look into certain tense situations growing out of
improper attitudes toward contests and decisions and their rela-
tion to teachers and teaching on the part of different institutions
in this country. It is a fact that today in the United States there
are not only high schools and academies, but there are colleges and
universities, in which the teachers of public speaking, who are pre-
sumably and formally upon the same footing as teachers in other
departments, are actually, as a matter of fact, given to understand
by those in authority that their permanence in their positions, their
promotion, and their salaries, are dependent upon the victories
which the institution can win in intercollegiate oratory or debate,
sometimes, even, without giving these teachers authority over
such contests! This is, in my opinion, a very grave menace to the
proper development of instruction in this field. I believe it is so
grave that this National Association should put itself on record as
being so opposed to this practice that we shall make it our business
to find out the facts in any case in which a member of this Associa-
tion charges that he has suffered in any of these ways on account
of defeats in intercollegiate contests. We can have a committee

THE PROFESSIONAL OUTLOOK 59

appointed which will investigate every such case, which will dis-
cover the facts and publish the facts. We can see to it that any
reputable teacher who loses a position for any such reason as this
shall have the support of this Association in getting a better position.
We can see to it that any institution, from a crossroads high school
to a great university, shall have the opposition of this Association,
and every member of it, in its attempt either to fill any vacancy
caused by such an action or to find reputable opponents for inter-
collegiate or interscholastic contests. I believe that this is one
point in which this Association can practically enforce its own
ideals. The very knowledge that we were ready to do it would
probably deter officers or boards who are contemplating this sort
of action, and certainly one or two cases properly exposed, and pub-
lished in every state in the Union, would have a very salutary
effect.

A second professional responsibility which we now have an
opportunity to face hopefully and frankly concerns our attitude
toward each other, not toward students or administrators. It is
largely our attitude as scholars. Shall we work with each other
as scholars work in other fields? We must now take a professional
responsibility for the things that are generally approved or gener-
ally discountenanced in this work. Questions of professional
ethics must be met frankly and discussed openly. If we fail to
discountenance certain practices because they have long been
followed by men whom personally we do not wish to offend, we are
not living up to this professional obligation. If we are too polite
to mention the shortcomings of any book for fear of hurting an
author’s feelings, we are quitters in the fight for better things.

Take the question of private lessons and special fees. I do
not wish to say that, wherever such a system exists, its purpose is
exploitation rather than education, but I do say that this practice
is much overdone, that there is a widespread feeling, which I believe
has some foundation, that this system fosters quackery and is
largely a money-making scheme. The principal point I wish to
make in regard to this is that this is a professional question. We
cannot say, “This is none of our business.” If you see to it that
there is no abuse of this matter in your department, have you done

60 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

your full duty? No, youhavenot. It is your business to work for
the elimination of evil practices over the entire field. The reputable
physician has not done his full duty when he refrains from quackery
himself. It is his duty to the public, it is his obligation to his pro-
fession, it is a point of honor in his ethical code, to oppose all quacks,
to refuse to recognize and affiliate with any quack. Professional
ostracism of those who refuse to live up to professional ideals is a
weapon we should borrow from the medical profession. Through
properly constituted instrumentalities this association should
make investigations, recommendations, and decisions for the
instruction and guidance of the whole profession in these matters.

Perhaps some of you are asking why we need to do such things,
when we find no parallel in the departments of English or mathe-
matics. Why take the medical profession as a model? The
answer is that we have a peculiar problem here that does not
bother the teachers of mathematics or English. This arises from
our youth as an academic department, and from the unsavory
practices and reputations of many who are in some way rated as
our professional forbears. Probably there is not one of you here
who has not suffered in some degree because someone has assumed
that you believe and practice what Mr. A or Miss B believed or
practiced in 1870, or even a less remote time, or that you counte-
nance or approve what is done mow in some institution where high
ideals have as yet been neither developed nor imported. Our past,
or at least the past which is credited to us, is not all that it should be,
and in order to rid our work of the hindrance of this inheritance we
must take positive, aggressive measures to demonstrate to our col-
leagues that the ideals and methods of our profession (not simply
of ourselves) are on as high an ethical and educational plane as
those of other academic departments and honored professions.
‘‘Watch well yourself and leave the rest to God” is not a complete
code when one is bound up in a large enterprise with the godless.

What I have said here applies to the indelicate use of the material
of another without a scrupulous giving of due credit. How many
books on public speaking are simply rehashes of other men’s writ-
ings, padded with selections also gleaned from other men’s sheaves ?
Perhaps no larger proportion than may be found in other depart-

PROD <<Pewent tlie

oven

wre

THE PROFESSIONAL OUTLOOK 61

ments, but I am afraid there is. But anyway, because we are so
much in need of careful and honest scholarly work (we may as well
admit it) it seems particularly bad to see the number of books of
this sort in our field that somehow get published, and even praised
and bought. Now, I am far from saying that we should not draw
on the findings of others. I am insisting only that as a profession
we must insist on an honest crediting of all our borrowings. I
believe that we should follow to a certain point Honer’s example
(as related by Kipling). We ought to go and take what we think we
may require, but we must insist on a more accurate documentation
than can be afforded by an exchange of winks. We must insist on
this respect for the product of others in order to encourage those
who think they have something good to publish it, that we all may
have the proper and legitimate use of it, rather than seek to restrict
its use to their own classes or schools.

Perhaps our biggest problem in regard to the use of the products
of schajarly research is this: What attitude are we to respect and
encourage on the part of the person who makes an important dis-
covery or perfects an improved method? Is such a one to give
the benefits of this to the profession for the good of education, or is
he to keep it a well-guarded secret in order to profit by using it
himself for good fees paid by those who need it? Is a discoverer
to publish his results, using only the recognized and legitimate
protection of the copyright, and relying on professional ethics for
the respect of this and the granting of credit due, or is he to found
a “‘school” and charge a good round fee for the benefits of his
discovery? Suppose a member of this Association, as the result of
careful and elaborate research in voice or speech, should discover a
new and effective way of treating certain weaknesses. Should he
practically patent the process, as would the inventor of a new
kind of churn, or should he give the process to the profession as
would the physician who discovered a cure for cancer? We as a
profession can help to bring about the latter attitude by realizing
the importance of it, by respecting the copyrights, and by honoring
the professional devotion of the discoverer, and at the same time
adopting a much less cordial and less respectful attitude toward all
who act the other way.

or
> , .

<b
i heat ers

~*~

eee

b be
os
ea

4

62 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

Yes, we must as an organized and unified profession make use of
our opportunity to acquit ourselves of our responsibilities in these
things I have mentioned—the problems of codes and standards;
the problems of the importance and influence of extra-curricular
victories and defeats; the problems of the professional ethics
involved in our mutual relations; the problem of fees and plagia-
rism; and the use of new discoveries and methods—the results of
scientific research and scholarly investigation. This is one group
that we must attend to.

Now a brief comment on the second big group, which has to do
with the training of our successors, and I am done.

We have now a professional responsibility for the foundations
of the future—and for the first time we have a decent opportunity to
take a hand in laying these foundations. We can do something
now on an effective scale. The work and achievement of the next
generation will largely be conditioned by the atmosphere in which
we train our students of today. It is for us now to make the most
of this opportunity of laying the proper foundations for the scien-
tists and teachers, the scholars and administrators, who are to
follow us and take up the work as we lay it down. The opportunity
of training the young people who are entering this field as the realm
of their life-work is an opportunity to which we must pay the most
thoughtful attention. We must realize our responsibility for the
professional ideals we inculcate in our students who are to take up
our work. Are they to be teachers or time-servers? Are they to
give their utmost to the profession in educational service or to get
the utmost out of the profession in dollars and cents? Are they to
be scholars and investigators who are contributing to human knowl-
edge by a patient searching and testing or contributing to genuine
education by thorough and intelligent instruction of the great mass
of students, or are they to be an unreasoning and unquestioning
light brigade of thumb-rule practitioners? It is for the members
of this association to say.

These, ladies and gentlemen, are some of the questions that
we must answer as a profession. It is no longer sufficient that we
answer them as individuals. And it is no answer to any of us to
say that if we will see that our own department and our own classes

THE PROFESSIONAL OUTLOOK 63

are what they should be we shall have done all that can be expected
of us; that we should mind our own business and leave other people
alone. These matters are our business. They are as much our
business as the problems of the city are the business of each citizen.
It is our business as a profession to make the most of these oppor-
tunities and to live up to these responsibilities. This is the business
of this Association. In this union of teachers we have the only
body that has the power to attend to this business. Let us here at
this convention adopt such policies and take up such lines of action
as will show all interested in American education that this Associa-
tion proposes to attend to this business in every corner of this
country and in every type of institution. We shall doubtless be
laughed at by those who cannot understand, and called impertinent
by those whose interests are best served by the absence of proper
conditions. No progress has ever been made in any field except in
the face of such laughter and such cries of impertinence and inter-
ference with personal liberty. I trust that this National Association
is not to be deterred in its proper work by the jeering of those who
cannot understand or by the opposition of those who cannot afford
to see improvement come.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the professional outlook as I see it.
These are the problems, the difficulties, the opportunities, the
responsibilities that are before us as a profession. Have we the
courage and the self-respect to advance in the face of this outlook,
or, startled by this view, afraid to meet the trials before us, shall
we disband and sneak back disorganized to the shelter of the con-
fusion that is behind us? You practically have the answering of
this question in your hands at this convention.

rs
.

&
tA
Ss
a
RY

Perea

THE ORGANIZATION OF DEPARTMENTS OF SPEECH
SCIENCE IN UNIVERSITIES

CHARLES H. WOOLBERT
University of Illinois

OR three years I have been facing the question: Should speech
matters be taught in the department of English or in a sepa-
rate department? Owing to the peculiar circumstances of my
position and my personal feelings in the matter, I think I have had
to canvass this issue more diligently than most of my colleagues.
While I am responsible for all matters pertaining to public speak-
ing and oral expression at Illinois and hold an appointment as
a member of the department of English, yet personally I am
uncompromisingly of the notion that the two things do not belong
in the same department at all, any more than do political economy
and political science, or chemistry and physics, or psychology and
education. Thus having kicked against the pricks part of the time,
and the rest of the time having gone through the manual of arms
like a good soldier, I have had one or the other side of the case
thrust before me practically continually. Recently President
James asked me to state my ideas on the organization of a separate
department for speech studies and arts; the editor of the Quarterly,
having read a copy of my report, asked me to put my ideas into
shape for this month’s issue; hence this article. No other expla-
nations or apologies need be offered. Let this one statement of
my aim suffice, however: I have prepared this outline with the
idea of showing that speech science and art can be put upon an
academic basis acceptable to the most skeptical administrators
and the most scientifically disposed professors in the educational
world today.
I. THE NEED OF SEPARATION FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
In order to answer the question: Should speech studies be
given a separate department? we are forced by circumstances to
64

DEPARTMENTS OF SPEECH SCIENCE IN UNIVERSITIES 65

face the question in a revised and more vital form: Should speech
studies longer be kept within the jurisdiction of the department
of English? As the following case is made out strictly with the
needs and requirements of universities in mind (I am ready enough
to agree that the colleges are not governed by the same conditions
and do not feel the same needs), the question revised again should
read: Should speech studies im universities longer be kept within
the jurisdiction of the department of English ?

It is my contention that there should be separate departments
for these two lines of study, because they are essentially different
disciplines. In the first place, they differ in their field of operations.
English is given up specifically to thought that is written, speech
science to thought that is spoken. English can be used as an
avenue to the doctorate only in the form of a study of philology,
literature, and criticism; the advocates of the strictest treatment
of English as a science—notably the defenders of the Harvard
idea—flatly assert that there is no way of obtaining the doctorate
through rhetoric or speech studies; primarily it rests upon phi-
lology. The degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Harvard is given,
you will note, not in English, but in English philology. Only by
investigations in the field of the written word can a scholar win
his place in the field of English. Whatever studies he carries on
in expression, rhetoric, or dramatic art must be only a means to the
end he seeks and never the end itself. Speech science, on the other
hand, must be built on a basis of oral expression and can lead to
academic honors and dignities only by studies and investigations
into speech and its kindred oral sciences and arts. The two disci-
plines ought never to be confused, since they are so easily kept
apart.

Then again English and speech science differ in viewpoint and
outlook. Here we encounter a very striking difference and one
not noted often. English is concerned with the past more than
with the present, while speech science must occupy itself more
with the present than with the past. To some this may seem like
no reason at all, but consider it: there is a difference so vital here
that an understanding of it helps to settle the issue at stake. The
teacher of English, especially the accredited scholar, finds himself

66 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

most happy in his work when he is immured in his library, sur-
rounded by books. Occasionally he is drafted to teach rhetoric,
higher grammar, and standards of criticism; but such tasks he is
prone to look upon as his contribution to the world’s drudgery.
Give him his choice and he chooses the library and the notebook.
In other words, if he is asked to choose between the two activities,
first, teaching students an art to be used in the present, and,
secondly, investigating the literature of the past, he will choose
the latter; his training has brought him to this. But the man who
is rightly trained to teach speech science finds his greatest inspira-
tion in giving the world something for the present, in helping men
and women to make speeches, to interpret literature, and to present
the drama for the profit and delight of others. The difference is
made clear by the difference in permanence of the memorials of
the two activities: the memorials of the teacher of English can be
preserved in durable form; those of the teacher of speech science are
ephemeral and of no enduring permanence; they pass away with
the age that produces and receivesthem. Surely this is a difference
of far-reaching significance in determining the place and function
of speech science.

Then again the difference in the disciplines shows plainly when
the two are compared with the so-called “pure sciences.” It is
only by a stretch of the term that English can claim sanctuary as
a science; or else the effort to make the subject qualify as a science
entails a most rigid arid hard limitation of the field of its activities.
Probably the reason why English at its highest is restricted to
philology is that only in philology can the English scholar find
activities that lie near enough the boundaries of science. Speech,
on the other hand, claims as its ancestry disciplines that are of the
elect among the sciences: physics, physiology, anatomy, psy-
chology. Wherein it impinges upon the field of English it touches
where English as a science confesses to be least strongly academic:
rhetoric, composition, the art of effective presentation.

Then again they differ in methods and aims. English prepares
for activities chiefly subjective; it is primarily for the culture of
self, for the employment of the man who possesses it. When the
student has done his work faithfully in this subject he has filled

DEPARTMENTS OF SPEECH SCIENCE IN UNIVERSITIES 67

his own mind with stores of information, he has cultivated his own
powers of criticism, and he has widened his own knowledge of
languages. The chief gain accruing is hisown. But speech studies
prepare the student to affect others rather than himself. His
competence in His science is a useless asset unless he can impart
to others what they like or need. Hence speech science leads to the
public gathering and the crowd, English to the study and the select
circle; and the man who is best fitted to enjoy in solitude and to
fill his own mind is most of the time least effective in appearing
in public and in influencing the minds of others. Thus the two
lines of studies present different aims, ideals, subject-matter,
methods, and products.

Picture an individual enjoying the finest fruits of a course of
study in English, and what do you see? A man sitting at ease,
preferably alone, surrounded by books, enveloped in a soul-satisfying
silence, taking in the ideas and feelings of the ages to himself.
Then draw the likeness of a man fulfilling the highest purpose of
a course in speech studies, and what have we? A man in action,
elevated upon a public platform, set before a gathering of others,
bidding for the eye and ear of everyone present, and giving forth
vital ideas and feelings to the people before him. Here you have
at a glance the difference in the genius of subjects taught as English
and subjects taught as speech science.

One can even wonder how oral matters ever got into the hands
of the philologists; such men have not nearly so good a claim on
affairs of speech as other teachers and scholars. The fact that
the two subjects deal now and then with the same subject-matter
does not make the connection inevitable. Such a contention as
this would give even a better claim to the philosopher or the social
scientist or the historian. As a matter of fact, public speaking is
almost as often taught, in high schools especially, by teachers of
history as by teachers of English. The work is kept in the depart-
ment of English only by tradition; and the attitude of the scholar
in English toward it is almost invariably hostile, or at best luke-
warm. In fact, the English scholar finds no enthusiasm for giving
time and thought to speech matters; he is practically always con-
tent to consider it an “‘adjunct’’—I have been told pointedly that

68 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

that is all it is. Also I have been told by an eminent English
scholar that the problems the speech specialists set themselves
appeal to him as of no interest whatsoever. It is inevitably so—an
attitude with which we cannot have the slightest quarrel; for the
speech specialist feels precisely the same way about the problems
the philologist sets himself—also very naturally and properly.
The one cannot estimate values in the other’s field any more than
the economist can feel the sociologist’s fine enthusiasm for his
peculiar problems, or the chemist can appreciate the biologist’s
thrill for his special tasks. The disciplines are surely divergent
enough to make different appeals to scholarship and to attract
different types of mind.

So much for the need of a separate department as determined
by theoretical considerations. Note now a practical difficulty.
Assuming that a department of English would grant a teacher of
speech as rapid advancement as it gives teachers of English—and
this taxes the imagination heavily—still a professor of speech
science is out of place in a department of English. No matter how
well trained he may be for the work or how well liked by his col-
leagues personally, still he is in the wrong pew and cannot escape
embarrassment and intolerable restrictions. Clearly he can con-
tribute practically nothing to the councils of the department; for
he does not possess the right kind of information and experience.
When issues of vital moment to philology, literature, and criticism
arise, he can offer nothing of value to their solution. Even worse,
he cannot sympathize with his colleagues’ point of view; he must
necessarily have a sense of values considered by them warped and
distorted. He must put his emphasis in one place and they in
another—if he and they are true to their respective callings. Most
of the time he will think they are threshing over old chaff, and they
will think he is pursuing a will-o’-the-wisp.

All this assumes, however, that they pay any attention to him
at all; there is always the chance that many of them will not even
see him on the horizon. Then his intrusion becomes most painful.
If he is worthy of his calling, he will be profuse in his demands for
teachers, equipment, books, courses, lectures, debates, readings,
plays—all costing money. If the department of English is also

DEPARTMENTS OF SPEECH SCIENCE IN UNIVERSITIES 69

true to its calling, it will much prefer to place this money elsewhere;
it too has need of instructors, courses, lectures, books, and equip-
ment. Tension is simply unavoidable; yet the speech teacher is
obviously in the minority, and the inevitable result must be that
he has to be outvoted on any showing of hands. What he gets
must be by courtesy only; he cannot enforce a single demand.
Under such circumstances he necessarily becomes a belligerant
insurrecto or else knuckles under and meekly receives whatever
is doled out on his platter. Only under some system of real and
unqualified independence can a professor of speech get anywhere
within the department of English; that is to say, only under such
conditions of freedom that the whole logic of the case adds to the
contention that he should be free from English domination and
in all reason should be in a department of his own.

And the experience of our most important universities bears
out this contention. Wherever public speaking, oral expression,
and all phases of speech art and science are kept under the juris-
diction of the department of English, they are relatively weak,
lacking in aggressiveness and originality of enterprise. The list
is an obvious one: Harvard, Columbia, Yale, Princeton, Pennsyl-
vania, Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, Nebraska. This is a
formidable array, it is true; one might argue from it that here we
have proof enough of the lack of value in speech subjects as a uni-
versity discipline. But note that this judgment must be only the
judgment of the departments of English of these institutions; they
it is who declare that it must be only an adjunct, who fail to develop
what they have, who must be charged with acts of repression or
with a failure to see new possibilities for growth. For by the same
sign, where speech matters are placed by a university in a separate
department, they are aggressive, positive, original in experiment,
and enterprising in activity. The list is very well worthy of care-
ful note: Cornell, Wisconsin, Michigan, Chicago, Northwestern,
Iowa. In every one of these institutions strong men, unhampered,
are working out new ideas and giving impetus to the teaching of
speech in all its forms. Their imaginations have free play and
they are privileged to move ahead. It would be of vital interest
to detail their activities, but lack of space forbids. On the growth

7° THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

of this list depends the future of speech as a science and an art in
schools, colleges, and universities.

> ey

Il. THE ORGANIZATION OF A DEPARTMENT OF SPEECH SCIENCE

But some men will say in reply to the contentions just made:
“Ah, you omit the very essence of the matter—speech subjects
do not possess the disciplinary value necessary for recognition in
universities; whenever such a separate department is established,
it is without adequate base in strong academic work.” But this
objection is only superficial; it comes from those who either have
not had a vision of the field, or who have reasons for wanting to
keep speech in the background. To show, now, how extensive
a field is covered by speech science and how fruitful it is, consider
the following headings:

THE SCOPE OF SPEECH SCIENCE AS AN ACADEMIC STUDY

A.

. Phonology
a) The physiology of the voice
6) The physics of sound

c) The pyschology of audition
d) Phonetics

e) Orthoépy

2. The Technique of Expression
a) Vocal technique in speech
b) Bodily action, posture, and gesture
c) Criticism and critical standards of voice and action
d) History of elocution

3. The Psychology of Expression
a) Adjustment of mind and voice
6) The relation of the receiving mind to the expressing mind
c) The psychology of meaning and thinking
d) Interaction of thought-processes and vocal methods
e) Memory, perception, imagination, and ideation in speech

4. Application of Laws of Expression

a) Reading

6) Interpretation of literature

c) Impersonation, dramatization, and acting

DEPARTMENTS OF SPEECH SCIENCE IN UNIVERSITIES

5-

Io.

The Acting Drama
a) The mechanics of acting and play-directing
b) Stage arts

(1) Scene-making and stage sets

(2) Costuming

(3) Make-up

(4) Music

(s) Dancing
c) Stage crafts

(1) Architecture of the theater

(2) Economics of the theater

(3) History of theatrical management and stage traditions
d) The presentation of scenes and plays
e) Pageants, pantomimes, and the picture play

. Extempore Speaking

a) Principles and methods
6) Application by the method of the laboratory
c) The literature of extempore speaking

. Argumentation and Debate

a) Principles of argumentation

b) Argumentative composition

c) Principles of debate

d) Practice of debate

e) The literature of forensic speaking

. Persuasion

a) Study of the sources of human conduct

b) The psychology of crowds, public movements, reforms, and revolutions

c) History of oratory and eloquence

d) The rhetoric and composition of persuasion

e) The literature of persuasion

. The Pedagogy of Oral Expression

a) A study of methods and schools
b) Problems of teaching and class management

c) The relation of the academic to the commercial and artistic attitudes

The Aesthetics of Speaking, Interpreting, and Acting

As a means of showing the relation of speech science to other
disciplines, and, more significant yet, of showing the existence of
a unique field of speech science, a diagram that presents the case
graphically is here presented. A perusal of it at this point will

throw light on the topics just detailed.

71

= od Sean =;
5 CO uae te NR th ot

;
a’
+
2
#

TSAI SER! Oecd OT

oP CURA

72 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

Povit, At
SCieNcE

LIT icAL
to

ef

()
£101 oY

Lose
10

Diagram showing the existence of a special field or Speech Science and indicating
the relation of this subject to others.

Let the central circle represent the field of speech science and arts, and the smaller
circles those disciplines that touch upon and contribute to it. The numbered lines
represent the subjects that these disciplines have in common with speech studies.
It is obvious that there is a large field of study and investigation within the large
circle, the greater part of which is not provided for by the present departmental divi-
sions of university curricula.

Key to the scheme of numbering:

. The Literature of Public Address . Persuasion

. Rhetoric . Argumentation

. Criticism . Debating

Phonology . Aesthetics

The Physics of Sound . Speech Art

Elocution . Stage Art

Use of Vocal Apparatus . Stage Craft

Hygiene . Speech Material

Expression . Evidence

Thought-Processes . Social Adjustments and Human
Behavior

9S SY OM EY Wm

OO oT

DEPARTMENTS OF SPEECH SCIENCE IN UNIVERSITIES 73

B. COURSES OF STUDY SUITABLE FOR CURRICULA

From such a large field the task of choosing courses suitable
for colleges and universities is far from difficult. Following is
a suggested list; naturally it is offered as a suggestion only. No
two men would name courses alike; many could add courses not
mentioned here. Also the division for undergraduate, inter-
mediate, and graduate courses must be an arbitrary matter deter-
mined more by course content than by the mere name of the subject.
Thus many matters connected with argumentation, debate, expres-
sion, persuasion—in fact, all of the courses suggested as for under-
graduates only—can be employed successfully for a type of work
eminently suited to graduate study. The list is only a hint of
great and real possibilities.

a) For Undergraduates:
1. The Elements of Expression
. Extempore Speaking
. Interpretation and Dramatization
. Argumentation
. Debate
Persuasion
. The Forms of Public Address
. The History of Oratory and Orators
9. The Staging of Plays, Pageants, and Pantomimes
b) For Undergraduates and Graduates:
10. Theories of Phonology, Elocution, Expression, and Reading
11. The Psychology of Conviction and Persuasion
12. Standards of Criticism and Appreciation in Public Speaking, Inter-
pretation, and Acting
13. Stage Arts and Crafts
14. The Teaching of Oral Sciences and Arts

c) For Graduates:

15. Aesthetics of Expression and the Drama

16. The Physiology of the Voice and the Psychology of Audition

17. The Forms and Methods of Dramatic Presentation: History and
Tendencies

18. The Psychology of Expression

19. The Relation of Expression to Crowd Psychology and Social Move-
ments

20. Studies in Voice and Vocal Methods

OY An Pw bw

‘ali e. oe,

>

74 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

d) Research:
1. The Reactions of Hearers and Spectators in Differing Modes of Oral
Presentation
2. The Relation of Oral Expression to Belief and Acceptance

. The Speech Methods and Practices of Various Historical Times,
Races, and Peoples

. The Psychology and Logic of Evidence as Employed in Different
Fields: Law, Politics, the Church, Science, Commerce, and Education

. Standardization of Vocal and Expressional Theories

. Studies in the History of Expression, Public Speaking, Play-Producing,
and Acting |

. The Literature of Oratory, Debate, the Drama, Pageants, and Pan-
tomime

. Investigations into the Traditions, Ideals, and Aesthetic Standards in
the Allied Arts of Oral Expression

. The Relation of Expressional Methods to the Acoustics and Arrange-
ments of Public Halls

. Physiology and Hygiene of the Voice

. Abnormal Mentality and Speech

. The Relation of the Voice and the Fmotions

C. METHODS OF CARRYING ON THE WORK OF A DEPARTMENT

As oral expression has suffered discredit in the judgment of

administrators and professors at certain universities and colleges,
this is a good opportunity for stating the conviction that there is
no reason why the classwork and study of a department of speech
science should be in any way inferior academically to the work of
other departments. As this discipline covers both a science and
an art, there must be balancing of study and laboratory practice.
That the subject can be placed on a firm academic footing in both
of these particulars is clear. This discussion can be treated under
three headings:

1. Classwork and study—All work should naturally rest upon
textbooks as a means of studying theory and methods. The
improvement in available texts from year to year is most gratifying.
Classwork can be supplemented with an abundance of collateral
reading, as with any other substantial subject; while the subject
offers more than usual opportunities for the writing and handing
in of papers. Surely there is no inherent reason why this disci-
pline cannot offer work of as rigid a nature as any department in
the curriculum.

DEPARTMENTS OF SPEECH SCIENCE IN UNIVERSITIES 75

2. Laboratory practice—The subject lends itself very well
indeed to the method of the laboratory. Where art and science
are combined, the class hour can be used as combined recitation,
demonstration, and laboratory. In all likelihood there will be
a tendency to extend the time given to laboratory work, even to
adopting the multiple laboratory period. The use of practice in the
laboratory can be utilized for the cultivation of critical judgment
and the training in adjustment and co-ordination. Mere repetition
for repetition’s sake is not justifiable as a discipline; but repetition
coupled with a study of adjustment of voice and mind is of the
very highest value as academic training. Home practice continues
this adjusting and co-ordinating. Then use can be made of the
opportunities the student possesses for hearing and evaluating the
methods of the speakers, readers, and actors he hears from time to
time. Thus an ingenious teacher can employ a practical laboratory
in the same spirit as that employed by the teacher of physical
sciences.

3. Research and investigation.—Under the heading “Courses of
Study Suitable for Curricula” (p. 73), have been suggested several
fields of knowledge that offer excellent opportunities for the
scientifically trained investigator, and, very significant to note,
fields that are not now being worked by other disciplines, and yet
fields that offer promise of yielding valuable additions to scholar-
ship and learning.

D. QUALIFICATIONS AND PREPARATION OF TEACHERS OF SPEECH SCIENCE

Without question our universities are coming to require more
and more that all teachers measure up to a fixed standard, and the
teachers of speech science cannot in the future hope for exemption.
Here lies one of the chief problems of the coming science: there are
not now enough of rightly trained men and women in the field to
supply the demand. Eventually the university must replace the
special school in furnishing the training that will make good teachers
of speech subjects. Then with better recognition of the value of
the work will come an increase in the number of courses; and this,
in time, will furnish the proper number of teachers. But for the
present the harvest is indeed ripe and the laborers are very, very

76 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

few; moreover, it will be some years before we shall be able to
thrive without the graduates of the special schools. The training
they give is right now an asset to the man or woman who has the
proper university schooling and academic attitude, though alone
it is far from sufficient.

Then it is best that teachers of a subject involving an art should
have had some experience in the use of the art. Hence I strongly
recommend that all young people wishing to teach speech should
acquire experience as speakers, readers, actors, field workers for
a cause, or as participants in a speech-requiring profession. Then,
too, they add much to their availability if they are writers on speech
topics, if they have investigated into the theory, history, or litera-
ture of speech, or if they have added a specific training in vocal
hygiene and voice methods. To these academic qualifications
should be added the sympathy necessary for appreciating the needs
of audiences, a feeling for the attitudes of the masses, and—what
I regard as very viial—the will to express. Actual participation
in one’s art tempers judgment and refines theory.

III. THE PLACE OF SPEECH SCIENCE AS AN ACADEMIC DISCIPLINE

The foregoing sketch is full enough to require but little further
discussion of the place of speech science as an academic subject.
If a case has not been made, little chance remains for it in what
can be added. However, a few remarks of a general nature may
properly be included; in particular of a nature to meet the fears of
those who may suspect that men are recommending the adoption
of a discipline that will saddle upon universities a type of work that
is now in disrepute among some eminent teachers and scholars.
I refer to the work being done by some of the private schools of
expression.

The reason speech is backward as a subject has been its frequent
lack of academic character. The subject has suffered from pre-
cocity, or possibly, we might say, special indulgence. It has been
pushed in some places beyond its earned deserts—academically
speaking—and has been treated as a child of special privileges.
In other words, it has maintained a place in university curricula,
beside other disciplines which have been more stringent in scholarly

DEPARTMENTS OF SPEECH SCIENCE IN UNIVERSITIES 77

requirements and more dignified in scholarly achievements. But
because it is so indispensable and so universal an art it has been able
to claim benefits and dispensations.

But the day of such benefits and dispensations, it seems clear,
is past. Speech science, if it is going to persist in our universities,
must raise up for itself a corps of fully trained men and women.
That these men and women are appearing is a plain fact; that they
are coming in greater numbers we have every assurance. Of one
thing we may feel certain, and that is that the only sure way to
raise them in sufficient numbers is for universities to establish the
work on a favorable basis and invite them to come as students and
as teachers. A properly organized and administered department
in any university can be a center of influence that will be felt
throughout the whole country.

Speech science and art are right now enjoying a remarkable
recrudescence. Without enumerating reasons here, suffice it to
say that they are many and conclusive. Speech in all its forms is
so inherently valuable to the human race that it is unthinkable that
the educational world will be content to neglect the teaching of it

and fail to extend the knowledge of its laws and history. Every
sign indicates that in the years to come we shall see greater and
greater attention paid to speech and shall find more and more
teachers of it employed in schools, colleges, and universities.
Speech science has come to stay; it will grow in stature and favor
with each passing year.

EDITORIAL

THE NATIONAL CONVENTION

LSEWHERE in this issue we publish a number of the papers
which were read at the national convention in Chicago in
November. In the “Forum” section will be found the secretary’s
report, a copy of the constitution adopted, and other items of that
sort. These papers show the high character of the work done in
preparation for the convention and of the discussions which were
had at the meetings (though some of the best papers have been
held over for publishing in the April number of the Quarterly).
The papers and reports here published make any extended comment
upon the work of the convention unnecessary. There are a few
points, however, which might weli be touched on here. In the
first place, the prophecies made in the October Quarterly were
fulfilled. The meeting was the largest gathering of academic
teachers of public speaking ever assembled for any purpose. The
leading men and women working in this field were present from
widely scattered sections of the country. The atmosphere of the
convention was all that could be desired, and much more satisfac-
tory than that which often prevails at such meetings. There
seemed to be prevalent a whole-hearted desire to find out the truth
in regard to many difficult questions which came up, without con-
tending for pet theories or opposing methods and systems not one’s
own. Everyone seemed determined to get whatever help could
be obtained from every other person. The determination to work
together—to take the good wherever it could be found, and to
berate the bad regardless of personal consequences—was most
encouraging. All this speaks well for the future usefulness of the
national association. All who were present felt well repaid for
the time and money it cost. All who could not come this year
will be well repaid for making an effort to be present at the next
convention.
78

EDITORIAL 79

A STEP IN ADVANCE

HE new constitution and by-laws of the Northern Oratorical
League, just published, contain a very encouraging sign of the
times. At the annual meeting at Iowa City last May the league did
away with the old method of choosing judges in which each uni-
versity nominated a list of eminent men, giving about each nominee
such wholly irrelevant information as his age, education, politics,
religion, etc. They also did away with the system whereby one
institution could blackball any nominee and prevent his selection,
even though all the other institutions wanted him. In place of
these regulations, which it is difficult to characterize temperately,
the new orders provide that each university shall nominate six men
for judges, stating with each nomination the reasons why the
nominee is thought to be well qualified to judge this contest. It
further provides that any judges nominated by four or more of the
seven participating universities shall be selected without further
proceedings. The names of all nominees (with the recommenda-
tions of the institutions nominating) not selected in this way shall
be sent to each member of the league, and the whole list rated by
each member in order of choice. These lists will be returned to the
secretary of the league, who will determine the average rating of
each nominee and proceed to invite them in the order of choice.
The complete rating of all universities will be sent to each member
of the league, in order that all may know just how each university
has rated each judge proposed. This is certainly a big step in ad-
vance, and it is expected to do much toward insuring the judging
of contests by men who are well qualified to do such judging. May
other leagues go and do likewise.

SUPPORT FOR THE “QUARTERLY”

HOSE present at the national convention: know that the
Quarterly is in need of financial assistance. Every member of

the association should make a New Year’s resolution to do something
for the Quarterly before the first of February. There are a number
of things that you can do, any of you. We know from the letters

80 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

that are coming in that there are people in every section of the
country who are looking for just such a periodical as the Quarterly
Journal. They are learning about it in roundabout ways and
writing to inquire how it can be obtained. It ought to be a very
simple matter for every member of the association to send in at
least two memberships before the first of February. Many of you
have colleagues in your department or faculties who would become
members or subscribers to the Quarterly if you bring the matter
properly to their attention. There are also people in every state
who are interested in public speaking who are not eligible to join
the association or do not care to join, but who would be glad to
subscribe to the Quarterly if they knew about it. A few subscribers
could be obtained by each member with very little effort. Sample
copies will be furnished by the business manager for your use in this
work. Many of you are in touch with libraries, clubs, and other
institutions whose subscriptions may be obtained through the
simple formality of showing a sample of the Quarterly and asking
for a subscription. Is the Quarterly in your school library? You
should find out. Is it in your city library? If not, see that it is
there in the future. Many of the members can assist in getting
advertising. Some of you are in touch with professional schools
whose advertising could be readily secured by you. Some of you
have such relation with book companies that you could easily
get an advertisement if you solicited it personally. Any one of
you who is an author of a book in this field should see to it that
your publisher advertises your book in the Quarterly. If each
member will do something in one of these ways within the next
month the financial difficulties of the Quarterly will be over. The
Quarterly belongs to the association. It is the property of all the
members, and they are responsible for it. The work of building
up a proper membership list, subscription list, and advertising
list to support this enterprise properly should not be left to a
small group and cannot properly be done by a small group. Of
course, articles for publication, new items of distinct academic
interest, letters and discussions for the forum section, etc., are
always welcome and will always be needed, but just at present our
financial obligations are somewhat more pressing than our literary

EDITORIAL 8

needs. Isn’t the national association and its Quarterly Journal
of sufficient importance to you, for you to do something by way
of its support before February first ?

A LETTER TO THE NATION

LL who are interested in absurd criticism of intercollegiate
debating will find a delightful morsel on pp. 10 and 11 of the
Nation’s correspondence supplement for December 23, 1915. In
a letter written by Mr. Robert Hale, of Boston, there occur in the
space of a little over a column more ridiculous statements con-
cerning intercollegiate debate than we have ever before found
crowded into the same amount of space. The caricature of debat-
ing which Mr. Hale sets up, and then proceeds to demolish with
some gusto, is so overdone that we can hardly call it good caricature.
It is amazing how much misstatement of fact and loose thinking a
man can get into a paragraph when writing a letter to the Nation
on a subject on which he is apparently quite uninformed. We need
not take the space here to discuss this letter in detail, but suggest

that you read it for your own entertainment, or that you use it as
laboratory material in your Freshman or Sophomore classes.
Writing an answer to it would be a good exercise for them in easy
refutation.

VOLUME II

It has been decided to consider Volume I of the Quarterly closed
and to start Volume II with this issue. There are a number of
reasons for this. In the first place, the editorial and business
management of the Quarterly is subject to change at each annual
meeting, so that if we begin our volumes with the April number
each volume would be made up under the editorial and business
management of two different staffs. In the second place, this
will simplify very much the clerical work to be done by the busi-
ness manager and the treasurer. This will make no difference to
subscribers, because subscribers for one year will get four numbers
regardless of when their subscription starts. New members joining

a

PET tl EEE EE ME as

Eee es al

arma AR. SRNR at >

82 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

the association at this time will want to begin with the January
number of course, and old members, whose subscription will be
paid upon paying membership dues, will be in no way affected,
since the national convention decided that membership dues would
always be due and payable at the time of the annual meeting. If,
in making this change, we have overlooked any consideration and
have inconvenienced or mistreated any interested parties, their
wrongs will be redressed upon receipt of a statement of the facts.
It is so much better for many reasons to have the volumes coincide
with the calendar years that we have decided to adopt this policy
and to adjust everyone’s interests to it as well as possible.

THE FORUM

SECRETARY’S RECORD OF THE FIRST ANNUAL CONVENTION

HE convention was called to order on Friday, November 26,
at 9:00A.M., by President J. M. O’Neill. In the absence
of H. B. Gislason, University of Minnesota, Secretary of the
Association, H. S. Woodward, Western Reserve University, was
appointed Secretary.
The following program was carried out:

FrmaAyY FORENOON, NOVEMBER 26

President’s Address: ‘The Professional Outlook ”’

J. M. O’NEn1, University of Wisconsin

“The Freshman Course in Public Speaking”

Wrsur Jones Kay, Washington and Jefferson College, Pennsylvania
Discussion: Mrs. PERLE SHALE KINGSLEY, University of Denver, Colorado
Open Discussion: Winans, Cornell University; Woo.sBert, University of

Illinois; Miss Austin, Central High School, St. Paul; Raric, Uni-
versity of Minnesota; BLANTON, University of Wisconsin; Miss Joun-
son, University of Wisconsin; CLARK, University of Chicago
“The Oratorical Contest—A Shot in the Dark”
R. B. Dennis, Associate Director, School of Oratory, Northwestern
University, Illinois
Discussion: Miss Rosr EvELYN BAKER, Cornell College, Iowa
Open Discussion: Futton, Ohio Wesleyan University; Woopwarp, Western
Reserve University; Kay, Washington and Jefferson College
“The Choice of Plays”

ALex M. Drummonp, Cornell University, New York

Open Discussion: CLark, University of Chicago; Miss Austin, St. Paul;
Miss Jounson, University of Wisconsin; Miss Bascock, University of
Utah; Futton, Ohio Wesleyan University; Miss THompson, South
Bend

Frmay AFTERNOON, NOVEMBER 26
No Meeting

The Public Speaking Section of the National Council of Teachers of English
in session, North Room, Auditorium Hotel, at 2:00 o’clock

83

ita

LP ADEA SA BODE

84 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

FRIDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 26
I

Wuat AcTION OUGHT THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION TO TAKE IN REGARD TO:
1. Standardized Rules for Intercollegiate Debate ?
Dr. D. W. RepMonp, The College of the City of New York.
The following resolutions were offered by Dr. Redmond:

Resolved, 1. That as a first step in the direction of standardization
of academic debate, students shall be allowed to present only such con-
clusions as rest upon fact as a basis, and that facts shall be obtained from
an ultimate source.

2. That in academic debate it shall be considered to be the business
of the negative as well as the affirmative to offer some constructive plan.

Discussion: Kay, Washington and Jefferson; Raric, University of
Minnesota; PRICE, ; SaREtTT, University of Illinois; Conran,
Culver Military Academy.

By vote of the convention Resolution No. 1 was defeated.
By vote of the convention Resolution No. 2 was carried.

2. The Improvement of Speaking Contests in High Schools ?
Miss LovutsE Extnor Lyncu, Gary High School, Indiana.
The following resolutions were offered by Miss Lynch:

Assuming that it is the aim and purpose of the National Association
of the Academic Teachers of Public Speaking to take active interest in
all the departments represented by the profession, and since the public
speaking contests in high schools are not conducted on a satisfactory
basis, the following resolutions are offered:

Resolved, 1. That a committee be appointed or elected to arrange for
representation of the teachers of public speaking in the National Educa-
tion Association.

2. That a committee be appointed to formulate rules governing all
high-school contests.

3. That all high-school associations be advised that if public speaking
contests are held in accordance with these rules, the Association will sub-
mit names of members who may be secured as judges.

By vote of the convention all three resolutions were carried.
3. College-Entrance Requirements in Reading and Speaking ?

H. H. Wane, Mercersburg Academy, Pennsylvania.
The following resolution was introduced by Mr. Wade:

Resolved, That the National Association of the Academic Teachers of
Public Speaking, recognizing intelligent reading and clear expression as
fundamental needs in all branches of education; recognizing a present
need for a higher standard of reading and speaking in our schools; and
believing that this can best be achieved by the adoption of entrance
requirements on the part of universities and colleges; does hereby express
its belief in the need and value of such requirements, and approves the
following action tending to bring them into existence:

1. The President of this Association shall appoint a committee of
five members to act in conjunction with him in such action as shall be

Ci eat "REE LE iinet i sa le hla

re

THE FORUM 85

deemed necessary in bringing about the adoption of college-entrance
requirements in reading and speaking.

2. The activities of this committee shall not be limited except as they
shall be instructed to consider, among other points brought up by the
Association, the following topics:

a) The present status of reading and speaking as preparatory subjects.

6) Relation of reading and speaking to other branches of education.

c) The means of making college-entrance requirements generally
effective.

d) A basis upon which colleges should build their requirements.

Discussion: Kay; Raric; Miss Austin; Hovucuton, University of

Wisconsin; Miss BABCcOocK.

On motion by Rarig it was voted to amend the resolution by substituting
the word “granting” for “adoption” and the word “credits” for “require-
ments.”

By vote of the convention the resolution was adopted as amended.

It was voted on motion made by Gaylord that the following committees
be appointed: Nominations, 5 members; Constitution, 5 members: Auditing,
3 members.

President O’Neill appointed the following:

Committee on Nominations: REDMOND (chairman), KETCHAM,
Merry, Miss AusTIN, WOOLBERT.

Committee on Constitution: LANE (chairman), TRUEBLOOD, Gay-
LORD, WINANS, NELSON.

Auditing Committee: McKie (chairman), JoHNSTONE, WOODWARD.

4. The Practice of Publishing and Distributing Briefs, Outlines, Speeches,
etc., to Debating Teams in Schools and Colleges ?

Victor Atvin Ketcuam, Ohio State University.

The following resolutions were introduced by Mr. Ketcham:

Resolved, 1. That a committee be appointed by the President to
formulate a definite policy regarding the publication and distribution of
briefs, debates, and orations, and to propose practical measures for
carrying out that policy.

_ 2. That this committee be governed in its work by the following

instructions:

a) That the object of the measures proposed: shall be to encourage
the publication and distribution of briefs, debates, and orations.

6) That the committee obtain written opinions on any p'
recommendations from those persons now engaged in editing and publish-
ing briefs, debates, and orations or conducting bureaus from which such
material may be obtained.

c) That some practical plan be proposed by which the best material
may be selected and made available to all schools and colleges.

Discussion: ConrapD, Culver Military Academy.
Resolution No. 1 was adopted.
It was voted on motion by Winans to lay Resolution No. 2 on the table.

Ra SOE SE

PR Ds IM PS TS

86 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

5. Establishing a Summer School for Teachers ?
I. L. Wanter, Harvard University, Massachusetts.

The following resolution was introduced by Mr. Winter:

Resolved, that under the auspices of this Association a summer school
for teachers be established.

It was voted on amendment by substitution made by Redmond that the
subject of a summer school for teachers be placed in the hands of the Execu-
tive Committee of the Association for consideration, report to be made at
the next meeting of the Association.

It was voted on amendment made by Gaylord that this committee be
empowered to establish a conference of teachers the coming summer if the
members find it advisable.

II
A Buffet Supper and Reception.

SATURDAY FORENOON, NOVEMBER 27

“Interpretative Presentation versus Impersonative Presentation”
Miss Maup May Bascock, University of Utah.
Discussion: S. H. CLark, University of Chicago.
Open Discussion: McKie, Furtton, Miss JoHnson, REDMOND, RAriG,
Kay, WINTER.

It was voted on motion made by Rarig that a committee of three or five
be appointed io present at the next meeting of the Association a report
on the subject of Miss Babcock’s paper.

“Research Problems in Voice and Speech”
Dr. SMILEY BLANTON, University of Wisconsin.

Discussion: CHARLES H. WooLBERT, University of Illinois.

‘*Research Problems in the Science of Speech Making”
Joseru S. GayLtorp, Winona Normal School, Minnesota.

Discussion: Georce McKie, University of North Carolina.

Open Discussion: BLANTON, CLARK.

SATURDAY AFTERNOON, NOVEMBER 27
Business Meeting

The Committee on Constitution (Lane, chairman) made its report. It
was voted that the report be so amended as to provide for the following stand-
ing committees: Research, 7 members; Membership, 3 members. It was
voted to adopt the report as amended.

The Committee on Nominations (Redmond, chairman), reported as fol-
lows:
President: J. A. WmNANS, Cornell University.
Vice-President, J. L. LaRDNER, Northwestern University.

THE FORUM 87

Secretary, Mrs. PERLE S. KIncsLey, University of Denver.

Treasurer, H. S. WoopWARD, Western Reserve University.

Editor of the Quarterly Journal of Public Speaking, J. M. O’NeEt1,
University of Wisconsin.

Associate Editors: L. E. Bassett, Leland Stanford Junior University;
Atex M. Drummonp, Cornell University; C. H. WooLsBert,
University of Illinois.

Business Manager, H. S. Woopwarp.

It was voted that the report be adopted. It was voted that the Secretary

be instructed to cast the vote of the Association for nominees of the committee.

The Treasurer’s report was made by Glenn N. Merry. It was voted that
the report be received and placed on file.

The Auditing Committee (McKie, chairman) reported its approval of the
Treasurer’s accounts. It was voted to accept the report of the Auditing Com-
mittee.

It was voted that the Business Manager be empowered to appoint an
agent in each state to promote the campaign for memberships and subscrip-
tions.

Protest was made by Kay and Conrad against the action taken Friday
evening in adopting the following resolution offered by Dr. Redmond:

Resolved, That in academic debate it shall be considered to be the business
of the negative as well as the affirmative to offer some constructive plan.

It was voted on motion made by Redmond that the resolution be recon-
sidered. Discussion by Sarett, Kay, Gaylord, O’Neill, Redmond. It was
voted that the resolution be laid on the table for one year.

It was voted that the time and place of the next meeting be left to the
Executive Committee.

The Research Committee (Gaylord, chairman) made a partial report.

Adjournment.

(Nore.—Over sixty teachers were present, representing forty-one institu-
tions, located in fourteen states.)

H. S. Woopwarp, Secretary pro tem.

THE NEW COMMITTEES

HE first two committees on the following list were elected at

the annual convention in November. The other commit-

tees have been appointed by President Winans. An endeavor has

been made in organizing these committees to have a nucleus of

each within reach of the chairman, with other members in more
distant sections.

88 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

EXECUTIVE

J. A. Winans, President, Cornell University, New York.

J. L. Lardner, Vice-President, Northwestern University, Illinois.

Mrs. P. S. Kingsley, Secretary, University of Denver, Colorado.

H. S. Woodward, Treasurer, Western Reserve University, Ohio.

D. E. Watkins, Chairman, Public Speaking Section, English Council, Knox
College, Illinois.

J. M. O'Neill, Editor of the “Quarterly Journal,’’ University of Wisconsin.

EDITORIAL

. O'Neill, Editor, University of Wisconsin.
assett, Associate Editor, Leland Stanford Junior University, California.
rummond, Associate Editor, Cornell University, New York.
oolbert, Associate Editor, University of Illinois.
Woodward, Business Manager, Western Reserve University, Ohio.

MEMBERSHIP

. B. Gough, Chairman, DePauw University, Indiana.
. H. Davis, Bowdoin College, Maine.
M. Tisdel, University of Missouri.

RESEARCH

J. S. Gaylord, Chairman, Normal School, Winona, Minnesota.
Dr. S. Blanton, University of Wisconsin.

H. B. Gislason, University of Minnesota.

Miss Anna H. Hosford, Smith College, Massachusetts.

Dr. D. W. Redmond, College of the City of New York.

A. T. Robinson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
George McKie, University of North Carolina.

HIGH-SCHOOL CONTESTS

A. H. Johnstone, Chairman, Hamline University, Minnesota.
Miss Helen Austin, Central High School, St. Paul, Minnesota.
C. W. Boardman, Central High School, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
J. Q. Adams, University of Louisiana.

J. W. Wetzel, Yale University, Connecticut.

COLLEGE-ENTRANCE CREDITS

L. Winter, Chairman, Harvard University, Massachusetts.
A. Winans, ex officio, Cornell University, New York.
M. Cochrane, Carleton College, Minnesota.
P. Daggett, University of Maine.

B. Drury, University of California.

H. Wade, Mercersburg Academy, Pennsylvania.

I.
J.
I.
Ww.
N.
H.

THE FORUM

NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION
B. C. VanWye, Chairman, University of Cincinnati, Ohio.
F. H. Lane, Pittsburgh University, Pennsylvania.
R. L. Lyman, University of Chicago, Illinois.
Miss Frances Tobey, Colorado State Teachers College.
T. C. Trueblood, University of Michigan.

DISTRIBUTION OF BRIEFS, ETC.
C. D. Hardy, Chairman, Northwestern University, Illinois.
F. E. Brown, South Dakota State College.
Loren Gates, Miami University, Ohio.
V. A. Ketcham, Ohio State University.
C. D. Crawford, Beloit College, Wisconsin.

INTERPRETATION 05. IMPERSONATION

S. H. Clark, Chairman, University of Chicago, Illinois.
Miss M. M. Babcock, University of Utah.

Binney Gunnison, Lombard College, Ilinois.

F. M. Rarig, University of Minnesota.

H. M. Tilroe, Syracuse University, New York.

CONSTITUTION OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF THE
ACADEMIC TEACHERS OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

ARTICLE I

The name of this organization shall be the National Association
of the Academic Teachers of Public Speaking.

ARTICLE II

The management and control of this Association shall be
intrusted to the following officers: president, vice-president, secre-
tary, treasurer; and an editorial board composed of an editor, three
associate editors, and a business manager, who shall be treasurer of
the Association.

BY-LAWS
ARTICLE I
ELECTION OF OFFICERS

SECTION 1. The officers of this Association shall be elected at
the annual meeting.

SET Eee: RDA + ee

go THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

Sec. 2. The officers of this Association shall serve for one year
and shall act as an Executive Committee in conjunction with the
chairman of the Public Speaking Section of the National Council
of Teachers of English and the editor of the Quarterly Journal of
Public Speaking.

ARTICLE II
DUTIES OF OFFICERS

SEcTION 1. The President, or in his absence, the Vice-President,
shall preside at all meetings, and shall have general supervision of
the affairs of the Association.

Sec. 2. The Secretary shall keep the minutes of the meetings
and prepare a memorandum for the use of the President.

Sec. 3. The Treasurer shall be custodian of the Association
funds, which he may pay out on the order of the President. He
shall take vouchers for all disbursements of money and shall return
and file them, and keep an account of all receipts and expenditures.
He shall report at the annual meeting of the Association, and his
report shall be properly audited by a committee chosen by the
Association.

ARTICLE IIT
COMMITTEES

SEcTION 1. The officers of the Association and the chairman of
the Public Speaking Section of the National Council of Teachers
of English and the editor of the Quarterly Journal of Public Speaking
shall constitute the Executive Committee.

Sec. 2. There shall be a Research Committee composed of
seven members.

Sec. 3. There shall be a Membership Committee composed
of three members.

ARTICLE IV

MEMBERSHIP

SecTION 1. The following are eligible to membership in this
Association:

A. Any teacher engaged in giving regular academic courses
in separate and independent departments of public speaking in

THE FORUM g!

universities, colleges, normal schools, or secondary schools in the
United States.

B. Any teacher giving such courses in universities, colleges, and
normal schools in any department other than the department of
public speaking.

C. Any member of a secondary-school faculty whose work is
primarily or exclusively in public speaking, regardless of depart-
mental organization.

D. Any person not included in A, B, or C whose application
for membership shall be favorably acted upon by the Membership
Committee.

ARTICLE V

DUES

SecTION 1. The annual dues shall be $2.00, and, in addition, a
registration fee of $1.00, payable at the annual meeting.

ARTICLE VI
MEETINGS

SECTION 1. The time and place of the next annual meeting
shall be determined each year at the annual meeting.

Sec. 2. The members present at any regular meeting shall
constitute a quorum.

ArTICLE VII
AMENDMENTS

SEcTION 1. Amendments of the Constitution or of the By-Laws
may be made at any meeting of the Association upon a two-thirds
vote of the members present; provided, that notice has been given
to members one month in advance.

F. H. Lane, University of Pittsburgh, Chairman
J. A. Winans, Cornell University

T. C. TRUEBLOOD, University of Michigan

B. G. NELSON, University of Chicago

J. S. GAyLorD, Minnesota State Normal School

= ae

bk PG

RTT et Al BE ee lt

TU Ree Ait Say ew ihe.

92 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

THE EASTERN PUBLIC SPEAKING CONFERENCE

. ie seventh annual meeting of the Eastern Public Speaking
Conference, which was the first formed in the United States,
will be held at Princeton, New Jersey, on Monday and Tuesday,
April 24 and 25. The conference decided last year to accept the
invitation of Professor Henry W. Smith of Princeton Seminary.

It is too early to make a complete announcement of the program,
but the Executive Committee has been working vigorously for
several weeks and is confident that the conference will be the biggest
and best that has ever been held.

A feature of special interest and instructiveness that is being
arranged for is an illustrated lecture by Professor Miller of the
Department of Physics of the Case School of Applied Science.
Professor Miller has invented a wonderful machine for picturing
sound waves to the eye and for analyzing sounds. This machine
promises to be of inestimable value to teachers of voice and offers
great possibilities to those interested in doing research work in the
human voice. This number alone will be worth coming to Prince-
ton to hear. But many other instructive discussions are promised.
Professor Winter of Harvard will read a paper on “Theories and
Methods of Training for Voice”; Professor Wetzel of Yale will
speak on “‘The Composition and Delivery of the Oration”; Pro-
fessor Covington of Princeton will have as his subject, “Are
Debating Results Logical or Psychological ?” involving the results
of some research work he has been doing during the past year; Pro-
fessor Robinson of the College of the City of New York will discuss
“The Organization of Speech Material.” Professor Robinson is
the author of a very interesting and instructive text entitled
Effective Public Speaking, which contains a discussion of this very
important but much neglected element of speech instruction.
Professor Carmody of Union Seminary will have a paper on
“Personality in Public Speech.” Others who have given a tenta-
tive promise to take part in the program are Professor Stevens, who
is doing such remarkable work in the presentation of the drama at
Carnegie Technical School; President Cain of Washington College,
and Professor Marshman of Pennsylvania State College.

THE FORUM 93

Special effort is being put forth to have a large representation
of women teachers. A number have been invited to take part in
the program. Among those from whom papers are expected are
Miss Mary Yost of Vassar College, who has been engaged in research
work in argumentation at the University of Michigan for the past
two years and from whence she received the Ph.D. degree last June;
and Miss Alice Spaulding, Dean of Women at Allegheny College,
who has been in Europe the past year and missed the last conference.
Both of these ladies were present at the opening conference held at
Swarthmore College in April, 1910, and took part in the program.
Their return will be welcomed by all.

The first meeting will be held at 10:30 on Monday morning,
when an address of welcome will be delivered by President Ross
Stevenson of Princeton Seminary.

The program is being constructed with the idea of concentration
or intensive discussion of fewer topics and yet so as to leave ample
time for general discussion.

The convention comes this year at a delightful season. The
weather should be mild and Princeton should be at its best. To
one who has never visited Princeton, with all its beauty and historic
interest, the convention offers an ideal excuse to go there.

Those wishing to arrange for accommodations should write to
Professor Henry W. Smith, Princeton, New Jersey.

WILBUR Jones Kay, President
Washington and Jefferson College

WarrEN C. SHAw, Secretary-Treasurer
Dartmouth College

MR. FLOYD S. MUCKEY ON VOICE

HE English Journal for December, 1915, contains an article

on ‘Voice Production,” by Mr. Floyd S. Muckey, of New

York City, which is of especial interest to voice-teachers and
teachers of public speaking.

Mr. Muckey, with the co-operation of the late well-known

physicist of Columbia University, William Hallock, has carried

04 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

out “‘a strictly impartial scientific investigation of the action of the
vocal mechanism from the standpoint of anatomy (structure of
the mechanism), physiology (function of the various parts of the
mechanism), and physics (laws which regulate its action).” By
means of a resonator such as that used by Helmholtz, the author
has analyzed the voices of such well-known singers as Jean and
Edouard de Rezke, Nordica, Calvé, and others. His conclusions
are interesting, but it is unfortunate that he was unable in some
cases to give the facts upon which the conclusions were based.

Mr. Muckey says that one of the things to be avoided by singers
and speakers is interference with the action of the vocal cords
and the resonance chambers, and that this interference is caused
chiefly by the false vocal cords, the articulatory muscles, and
especially the action of the soft palate. He says: “We found that
the raising of the soft palate shut off the cavities of the upper
pharynx and nose and diminished by more than one half the reso-
nance capabilities of the voice mechanism. This action of the soft
palate resulted in the loss of more than one half of the voice itself,
as shown by our photographic analyses.”

I do not quite know what Mr. Muckey means by this. The
soft palate is raised against the pharnyx wall during the production
of every vowel sound, and all the consonant sounds except m,
n, and mg. If the soft palate is not raised, shutting off the nose
cavity from the mouth for all the vowels and consonants except
those mentioned results in a very unpleasant quality of the voice,
such as occurs in the case of a cleft palate. If Mr. Muckey means
to advocate the lowering of the soft palate in singing and speaking
in order to let the sound pass through the nose, his advice must be
accepted with reservations. It may be, however, that he does
not mean to advocate this; perhaps the limits of his article pre-
vented him from making this point clearer. We hope that in the
near future he may write more at length upon some of the points
raised by his interesting article.

There are two sentences in Mr. Muckey’s article which are so
true that they should be engraved and placed in plain sight upon
the desk of every teacher who has to deal with the problem of poor
voices. They are: There is nothing mysterious or secret about the

ceil

iss.

—_——_—

Se Na

THE FORUM 95

teaching of voice production. There is no reason why any one teacher
of voice production should possess knowledge which cannot be acquired
by any other.

SMILEY BLANTON

A MASTER’S DEGREE IN PUBLIC SPEAKING

HE following provisions and requirements for a Master’s degree

in public speaking have recently been approved by the gradu-

ate committee and adopted at the University of Wisconsin:

I.

II.
III.

IV.

V.

Prerequisite: University of Wisconsin Teacher’s Major in Public Speak-

ing, or its substantial equivalent.

At least one regular academic year spent in resident graduate study.

The completion of not less than 24 unit-hours of graduate study as pre-

scribed in one of the following programs:

A. For those specializing in Oratory, Argumentation, Debate, Composi-
tion of Public Speeches, etc.:

1. Public Speaking 118a, 118), Teachers’ Problems. .......... (4)
2. Public Speaking 205, Seminar in Rhetoric and Oratory..... (4)
3. English 156, Literary Criticiem.......................... (2)
4. Philosophy 108, Psychology of the Emotions.............. (2)
5. Philosophy 213, Advanced Logic........................ (2)
6. Law Course in Pleading or Evidence..................... (4)
SI ae rd ee ne a his Wis oat annly wikuine Maxaman (6)

)

B. For those specializing in Voice-Training, Reading, Correction
of Speech Disorders, etc.:

1. Public Speaking 118a, 1185, Teachers’ Problems........... (4)
2. Public Speaking 201, Seminar in Voice and Speech......... (4)
SE ak ccWanehcnnciescsdyaeens A oe (3)
4- Philosophy 108, Psychology of the Emotions.............. (2)
5. Philosophy 107, Abnormal Psychology................... (2)
6. Philosophy 210, Psychological Seminar................... (2)
CAR gt ar apenas * ale tN ee a eer Pe (7)

(24)

The electives allowed must be chosen from graduate courses in Public
Speaking, English, Philosophy, Physiology, Education, or those in
Drama or Oratory in foreign languages.

Minor changes or substitutions in these requirements may be made to
suit the needs of individual students, provided that the recommendation
of the professor in charge of the student’s major and the approval of the
Dean of the Graduate School be obtained.

pe wn te

SALE

96 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

A REPLY TO MR. ABBOTT

A little space, please, to answer the question asked by Frederick
Abbott, in the July number of the Quarterly, “‘Is There a Speaker’s
Position?” There is no “set” position for the speaker. That
theory belongs with the ancient equipment, viz., aspirate voice,
oratund, tremors, and all other defects that have been used for
effect. Poise is fundamental to normal mankind. Position is
accidental.

The text for all teachers of the spoken word should be Work on
fundamentals. Develop a sense of poise in a man and you have
given him an asset for life. To direct anyone, “Stand so,” ‘‘Move
here,”’ ‘‘Gesture there,” limits the man’s power and directs his
attention to externals. Poise should underlie all physical training.
Establish a center, free the surfaces, and let the man talk. I have
used this method for many years, and even in the high schools
the results are wonderful. When you have given a student poise,
you have given him something that he takes with him for permanent
good. If ‘‘the thought is the thing,” then why work on English ?
The man ignorant of rules of grammar or rhetoric can readily get
his “‘thoughts across”; but because he can, we should scarcely
admit that the study of English is unnecessary.

Let me add, I learned the meaning of poise in Dr. Curry’s
school in Boston, and know of no books treating the subject. It
has always been a theory of mine that it needs a personal teacher.
Position can be learned from books, but not poise.

MARGARET MULLANEY LYNAHAN
Corninc (N.Y.) Hicn ScHoot

’ er = ee

NEW BOOKS

Voice and Nerve Control. By JuTTA BELL-RANSKE. New York:
Frederick A. Stokes, 1915.

Voice and Nerve Control, by Jutta Bell-Ranske, is a new book on
voice-training just issued by the Frederick A. Stokes Publishing Co.
The author has had thirty years’ experience as a teacher of voice cul-
ture and is undoubtedly a successful teacher. If the object of the book
were to make the teaching of voice-training more interesting, stimulating,
and imaginative it would be quite successful. But when the author
assumes to present the scientific facts of the physiology of the vocal
mechanism, and then does not do it, she exposes herself to just criticism.
There is hardly a page in the first half of the book that does not contain
statements which are not true from the standpoint of the physiologist.
Also there is a looseness of terms which is quite unjustifiable. Mrs.
Bell-Ranske uses terms in a way to suit her own purposes regardless of
the way they are used by the physiologist and the anatomist. “Nerve
breathing” is proclaimed as something new and unknown before. She
says: “Nerve breathing governs what we call complementary air supply,
which through a conscious mode of deep inhalation stimulates our entire
being and adjusts all the elements of our vocal organs.” Contrasted with
this nerve breathing we have “anatomical breathing.” Of course all
breathing is governed by the nerves. No muscle will move unless stimu-
lated to do so through the nerve. This distinction between anatomical
and nerve breathing is a distinction which does not exist. ‘‘Medulla
breathing”’ is said to be the kind of breathing that we must have in order
to have good tone production. The facts are that medulla breathing
is unconscious and involuntary breathing, and the breathing that is
needed for voice production is breathing which is governed by the
cortex of the brain.

I do not in the least know what Mrs. Bell-Ranske means when she
says that “the forward muscular expansion of the diaphragm follows
anatomical adjustment without any conscious breath or unnecessary
force.” Also this: “ By placing the hand over the diaphragm and draw-
ing a deep conscious inhalation up to the medulla, without giving the
body a thought, the student will find that a great expansion takes place

97

98 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

in the diaphragm, stimulating all parts of the entire trunk of the body.”
Evidently the writer still believes that the diaphragm is expanded in
order to expand the chest. It has been known for more than fifty years
that the diaphragm is contracted in order to expand the chest. Much of
the book seems to be filled with esoteric vaporings. It is the same old
thing that we find in the books of the wise fakers who fatten financially
on the credulity of our countrywomen. What place has a sentence
such as this in a book that assumes to present the scientific facts of voice-
training? ‘As we learn to control this mode of breathing [diaphrag-
matic] we will understand why oriental philosophers concentrate on the
nerve system, calling the diaphragmatic nerve plexus ‘the sum,’ and
the brain ‘the moon,’ for they have long since recognized what, as yet,
remains an enigma to most of us: namely, that access to the inner-
most recesses of our brain can be obtained only through nerve breath-
ing, stimulated to greater activity through conscious inhalation directed
from the solar plexus to the medulla.” The solar plexus belongs to
the sympathetic nervous system and is not concerned with the move-
ments of the inspiratory muscles. The nerve fibers from this plexus
control the secretion and movements of the stomach, and some parts of
the other abdominal viscera.

The harm that such a book as Voice and Nerve Control may do is
considerable. Especially the young teachers are likely to accept a book
from such an experienced teacher as true, and hence be led astray.

S. B.

Debaters’ Manual. Compiled by Epira M. PHELPs. White
Plains, N.Y.: H. W. Wilson Co., 1915. Cloth, pp.172. $1.00
The compiler of this volume has evidently searched diligently and
selected wisely. The manual contains high-grade material drawn from
standard textbooks, university bulletins, magazine articles, etc. The
writings of L. Jones, V. A. Ketcham, H. B. Gislason, L. S. Lyon, W. T.
Foster, Newton B. Drury, D. E. Watkins, E. D. Shurter, and others,
are quoted from at length. Part I deals with “How to Prepare a
Debate,” Part II, with “Debating Societies; Organization and Manage-
ment,” and the appendix (of about 50 pages) contains bibliographies,
indexes, etc., that should be very helpful.
This book can be heartily recommended, especially to those who have

to work with meager library facilities.
J. M. O’N.

NEW BOOKS , 99

The High School Debate Book. By E. C. Rossins. Chicago:
A. C. McClurg & Co., 1915. Cloth, pp. 229. $1.00.

This book contains thirty pages of text, one hundred and eighty-two
pages of briefs and bibliographies, with a model constitution for a literary
society and a list of questions for debate upon which the Library of
Congress has issued bibliographies, in the appendix.

Eighteen questions are covered in the main section of the book.
Briefs on either side of each are given with an excellent classified bibliog-
raphy. The bibliographies are the best parts of the book. They ought
to be very helpful. The briefs are not really briefs at all in the proper
sense of the word, but they are argumentative outlines that will prove
suggestive, particularly for important points in “the discussion.”
The “introductions” are of little account. Almost without exception
there is no adequate analysis of the problem and no statement of issues
and partition.

The text is not good. It gives too much comfort to those who hold
that “practice’’ makes good debaters regardless of knowledge of the
principles which underlie all really good debating. All through his
chapter on “briefing the question’’ the author confuses the brief with
the speech, and makes some quite incorrect statements in his attempt
to square the rules for brief-drawing (which are all right for their purpose)
with the requirements of speechmaking (which is quite a different thing).
The grounds upon which a teacher of debating may quarrel with the
following passages are literally too numerous to mention in this review:
“Directly following each interview, the debater should make careful
and clear notes on the information gained. Care should be taken to
learn why a man holds a certain opinion. The debater, if possible,
must ascertain if there are political, religious, or social beliefs that influ-
ence the man’s opinion. If such is found to be true, and he learns that
a number of men are apparently directed by the same influence, an
important fact has been discovered. It is more than likely that the
majority of the audience, as well as the judges, will be influenced in the
same manner. The debater should commence early to appeal to these
opinions, or prepare skilfully to combat them, as the case may require.
The deep-seated, almost unconscious, convictions which men get from
political, religious, and social environments are strong factors in shaping
their opinions upon public questions, and it will tax the ingenuity of
any debater to appeal to, or circumvent, such opinions.”’

“The speech should contain no points or arguments that are nct |
found in the brief.”

100 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

“As soon as the speech has received its final revision, it should be
committed word for word. Here, again, authorities are at variance.
Some insist that a debate should never be memorized verbatim; but
the person unused to appearing before audiences will find it a distinct
advantage to know exactly the words in which he is to express his
thoughts.”

“The debater will find it advisable to prepare and commit many
rebuttal arguments. Each point that the opposition is likely to advance
should be answered in detail before the debate comes off.”

“The prime object of a debate is to convince. Hence, the speaker
should attempt to persuade his audience that he is correct in much the
same way that he would try to convince a friend of the right or wrong
of any question. It will be found advantageous to select certain ones
in the audience, generally the judges, and talk directly to them.”

J. M. O’N.

Debating for Boys. By WitttAM Horton Foster. New York:
Sturgis & Walton Co., 1915. Cloth, pp.175. $1.00.

This is not a book to be recommended either for club or classwork.
While, of course, scattered through its pages, there are many statements
that are quite all right, it presents nothing of worth that has not been
better presented by other books. And it is marred by numerous examples
of loose and superficial thinking. It contains some very thoughtless
remarks about the purpose of debate being “to get at the facts,” to find
the “truth,” and not to “beat the other side” or to win a victory; con-
test debating and situations in real life in which real questions must be
settled are hopelessly confused; the directions for brief-drawing and the
sample brief are particularly poor. The book abounds in inconsistencies
in regard to purpose, methods, judging, etc. On p. 28 we find: “The
harassed judge must never forget that he is deciding on the merits of the
debate, not on the merits of the question’’; on p. 86: “One side only can
be right, and if your side is not right it should not win.” In one place,
debating is depicted as “the most manly of all sports, and a royal sport
it is” (preface), and in another, boys are exhorted to “Go to it, but go to
it as a real thing, a thing worth while and not a mere game”’ (p. 84).
The author tries to distinguish between “argument” and “persuasion”
rather than “conviction” and “persuasion,” and sets up the following
standard of debating (for boys), ‘Argument, therefore, is addressed in the
first instance to reason alone; it may or may not be combined with

Se

NEW BOOKS 10!

persuasion, but the two are absolutely different. The perfect argument
will be so absolutely convincing, its logic will be so unanswerable, that
its hearers will be compelled by its very force to follow its conclusions,
since they cannot escape them.”

The preface opens: “The judge, in awful ermine, on the bench;
the jury, glowering, in its box; the prisoner, the book, in the dock;
enter in humility, the attorney for the defense, the preface.

“What excuse for existence has the prisoner?” thunders the judge
in tones that make the culprit’s leaves shake.

In cringing deference, the attorney for the defense falters, ‘“None,
your lordship, none, but... .”

Strike out the “but . . . .” and all that follows, and the attorney
for the defense will still considerably overstate his client’s case.
J. M. O'N.

University Debaters’ Annual. Edited by Epwarp C. Mast.
White Plains, N.Y.: H. W. Wilson Co., 1915. Cloth, pp. 534.
$1 . 80.

The University Debaters’ Annual appears as the first volume in a
series of yearbooks on college debating. It contains intercollegiate
debates from fourteen different colleges and universities, a few briefs,
and some excellent bibliographies. It is not necessary for me to discuss
the text of this volume. It is what most of the readers of the Quarterly
are more or less familiar with—the speeches in intercollegiate debates
prepared for publication. Some are poor, some are good, and some are
excellent. The book is very well put together and is an interesting
volume for anyone interested in American intercollegiate debating.

In the preface the editor says “That this record may be accurate,
effort has been made to secure the verbatim reports of the speeches in the
constructive argument and in the rebuttal.” He does not say how far
this effort was successful. Some of the speeches read like verbatim
reports, but I feel that most of them are simply the debaters’ manuscripts,
and that a good many of them were written after the debate rather than
before it. The important thing is not what a debater thought, before
the debate, that he was going to say, nor what he thought, after the
debate, that he did say—or that he ought to have said. But what
actually did he say while on the platform? That is the question. In
these days when (I trust) memorized speeches are not usually presented
in intercollegiate debate, no manuscript prepared by the debaters, either

102 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

before or after speaking, will be a real report of the debate. There may
be great difficulties, financial and otherwise, in the way of getting an
absolutely accurate transcript of a stenographic report of what was
actually said in the debates, but it seems to me that that kind of a report
is really worth while, and that no other report is worth very much to
anyone. So my only quarrel with this book is that it is not as thorough
and accurate as it might well be. I have a feeling, however, that it is
the most thorough and accurate one that has ever been published on its
subject—and that may be sufficient achievement. But I feel that
there are very great possibilities in such a series of debaters’ annuals
and this volume does not realize a sufficient number of such possibilities.
I think many teachers of debate would be very glad to pay three times
the price of this volume for a volume made up in the following manner:
An absolutely accurate, word for word, report of all that was said
during the debate, with no editing of any kind except sufficient to insure
proper spelling and punctuation—not the change of a single word or
the correction of a single grammatical error. If we could have such a
report of debates, followed in each instance by a signed statement of
each judge, giving his vote and his reasons for it, I believe it would be a
very great benefit to teachers and students of debates whether interested
in classroom work or in extra-curricular contests. I realize of course
that debate is much more than written argument, and that no report
can accurately represent the debate, or give one a fair basis for saying
whether or not the judges were justified in their votes. Too much
depends upon presentation (and properly so) for this. But a word-for-
word report of all speeches in the order in which they were given would
certainly be the best report. Why not have the best?

In one other way I think the producers of this volume have made a
mistake. They have published in a single chapter, for instance, the
Dartmouth affirmative against Brown and the negative against Williams;
in another chapter, the Brown affirmative against Williams and the
negative against Dartmouth; and in another chapter the Williams
affirmative against Dartmouth and the negative against Brown. This
makes it very inconvenient to read a single debate as it was given. It
seems to me that that is the only way in which to read a debate. The
separate speeches of a single team presented in order, without having
sandwiched in with them the speeches of the opponents, to which refer-
ence is made, and on which some of these speeches are largely built, give
a very poor idea of a debate. It is said in the preface that the grouping
of the debates of one institution into a single chapter is for the con-

NEW BOOKS 103

venience of those using the material in classroom work, but I fail to see
why, for classroom work or for any other purpose, it would not be
very much better to have a complete debate presented fully in the order
in which it was spoken. If the publishers of this volume would spend
the time and money necessary to make future volumes meet these
suggestions, I believe it would be not only a great service to debating

but also a good business venture.
J. M. ON.

The Teaching of Oral English. By Emma MILLER BOLENIUs.
Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1914. Cloth, pp. 214.

The Teaching of Oral English, by Emma Miller Bolenius, is a delight-
fully unique textbook that reads like a novel. Its pages are packed
with the description of warm personal experiences in the development
of an effective oral English program for the four high-school years; with
suggestive exercises to be adapted for use in any high school, by any
teacher of English; with a discussion of the underlying and funda-
mental principles of oral English, and with an exposition upon the whole
problem of the psychology arid pedagogy of the subject. But withal
there are many more pages of practice than of theory.

Teachers of English the country over have been feeling the need
of just such a textbook as Miss Bolenius has written, but probably no
one imagined that the need would be so delightfully supplied; that
the text would record, when it came, real human experiences, real
classroom problems, real student solutions, real oral English that results
from spontaneous impulses of interest in the exercise.

This is a text for the use of teachers exclusively, and for the inspira-
tion of all teachers who are interested in making classroom work in oral
English vivid and vital.

5. B.S.

The Making of an Oration. By CyarK MILts Brink. Chicago:
A. C. McClurg & Co., 1913. Pp. 421. Cloth, $1.50.

Of the 421 pages in this volume, 215 are filled with selected orations,
lists of orations “for further study,” and a list of subjects “suitable
for orations.” Even if we could grant that the list of orations is a good
one, yet every live teacher prefers to do his own selecting; but it is the
same old list. More than half of them can be found in every “scissors-
and-paste”’ book on public speaking. The following is a list of orators

104 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

appended to the list of “orations for further study”: Wirt, Randolph,
Sumner, Webster, Everett, Mansfield, Macaulay, Patrick Henry,
etc. Here are some typical examples of the 563 “‘subjects suitable for
orations,” “given for the purpose of aiding students in choosing subjects
suitable for oratorical treatment”: “The Utilitarian Spirit of the Age’’;
“Evolution as Related to Christianity”; ‘The Cultivation of Esthetics
as an Ethical and Sociological Force’’; “Ueber die Berge sind auch
Leute”’; “The Invasion of Africa’; ‘‘The Decadence of the Monroe
Doctrine’; “The Hand that Rocks the Cradle Rules the World.”

The spirit of the book is clearly that of the past. Quite often the
author hints at a present-day discussion, but it is never more than a
hint. He thinks of oratory only as a fine art. He believes that no man
can hope to become an orator who has not been favored of God. Pray,
what satisfaction can any young man get out of that kind of emphasis ?
Naturally, he will feel that it is not for him. Even the young man of
talent may not know he has talent until he has spent a great deal of
time in trying to become just an ordinary speaker.

In the chapter on “General Qualities of Oratorical Style” the author
shows more clearly than anywhere else the best of the whole discussion.
Here he follows the classic distinction of the eighteenth century based
on the Greek and Latin writers. He says, “In expression, oratory, in|
common with other forms of discourse, must exemplify the three great
qualities of style—clearness, energy, and beauty. The modern idea is
that speechmaking must concern itself primarily with clearness and
energy. In this book seventy-one pages are given to these three prin-
ciples. Of these seventy-one pages, thirty-five are given to “The Use
of Figures and Other IHustrative Expressions,” and that in face of the
fact that on the first page of the Foreword the author says, “No attempt
is made to teach the higher and finer forms of oratorical style.”

Under the subject of clearness Professor Brink takes up six pages
urging the use of Saxon words instead of those of Greek or Latin deriva-
tion. The modern rhetoricians are not concerned with Saxon vs. Greek
and Latin derivations in discussing the subject of clearness, for the reason
that they have come tw realize that it is a question of specific or generic
words. More than that, the average college student does not know a

Saxon word from a Latin derivative.
B. F. T.

a